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OR, 

THE HAZARDS OF WOMEN. 


A DOMESTIC ROMANCE, PUBLISHED IN LONDON TM'^NTY-POUR YEARS AGO. 


AND GENERALLY ATTRIBUTED TO AND SAID BY ALL TO BE WRITTEN 

SoyrrXUxZ 

BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.A^^^- 

u ^ 

AUTHOR OF «ZANONI/’ “NIGHT AND MORNING'^ “RICHELIEU/' “LUCRE- 
TIA," “LAST OF THE BARONS," “EUGENE ARAM," “DEVEREUX," 

“LAST DAYS OF POMPEII," “ALICE," “ERNEST MALTR AVERS," 

“THE DISOWNED," “ RIENZI," “PAUL CLIFFORD," “PEL- 
HAM," “ HAROLD," “ MARY OF BURGUNDY," “ PHILIP 
AUGUSTUS," ETC., ETC., ETC. 


COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED EDITION. 



P l)tlabelp t)ia: 

T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET. 







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THE nOVt; 


OB, 




THE HAZARDS OF WOMEN. 


A DOMESTIC EOMANCE, 


FIRST PUBLISHED IN LONDON TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, AND GENERALLY ATTRIBUTED TO 


EDWARD LITTON BULWER. 



Were you, ye fair, hvi cautious whom ye trud. 

So many of your sex would not in, vain. 

Of broken vows and faithless men convplain. — ^Rowe, 




CHAPTER I. 

“ For shame ! for shame ! Agnes, to come burst- 
ing into the room so rudely, and with your hair 
all hanging about so negligently: — is that like a 
ladyl” exclaimed Lady Pomeroy, as her niece, a 
lively dark-eyed girl of about ten years of age, with 
a profusion of black curls waving in natural ring- 
lets over her dark but clear forehead, came jumping 
and laughing into the dining parlor, to partake of 
the dessert, and of a parental kiss after dinner. 

“ Why do you not imitate your sister Amelia? — 
you see she does not come in such a hurry,” pur- 
sued the same lady, as her eye turned towards the 
door with an approving glance at a fine fair-haired 
girl of eleven, who walked quietly and demurely 
into the room, and dropping a D’Egville curtsey at 
her entrance, made the round of the table ; turning 
first one cheek, and then the other, to her parents 
and her aunt, without the possibility of discom- 
posing either the economy of her own ringlets, or, 
like her sister, disturbing any body by her boiste- 
rous caresses. 

“ Your aunt speaks truly, Agnes,” said her 
father ; “ you are growing too old to give way to 
this childishness, and you will indeed do well to 
begin to imitate the manners of Amelia.” 

The buoyant spirit of the youthful Agnes was, 
for a moment, checked by the reproof of her aunt, 
and by the severe glance of her father ; but it soon 
revived, when she looked timidly into the face of 


her mother, who gazed tenderly and half pityingly 
on her, as she pressed her warmly to her bosom, 
when she came to her end of the table, a place she 
invariably sought the last; because there she was 
sure to gain a small portion of her mother's chair, 
and fruit; and with her she could chat and laugh, 
and give vent to all the childish and volatile spirits 
with which nature had blessed her. 

“ You should consider, my dear,” said^ the mo- 
ther, in an apologetic tone, “ that Agnes has not 
had the advantage that Amelia possesses, in living 
so much with her aunt, and consequently, her spi- 
rits are not so much under control ; neither has 
she enjoyed the tuition of D’Egville, to regula^te 
her movements, nor of Crivelli to modulate her 
voice, nor a number of other privileges which the 
kindness of Lady Pomeroy has procured for her 
sister.” 

These words were accompanied with a glance 
which almost bespoke an admiration and a love of 
the little being who was the subject of her apology, 
greater than that which she felt for her whose su- 
periority her words acknowledged. 

But there* was an appearance of melancholy, 
almost allied to pity, in this glance, which would 
have given an attentive observer the idea that sha 
was looking into futurity, and dreading the effects 
of that acute sensibility which formed the principal 
characteristic of the young Agnes. Perhaps, at 
this moment, her memory glanced back to the 
time when her own heart leaped and bounded 


8 


THE ROUE. 




with all the young energies of incipient feeling; — 
TV hen the tear of pity, or the sniile of gladness, 
was always ready to spring, at the slightest call, to 
her own lips and eyes. Perhaps, too, her imagina- 
tion traced, with that power which it has of col- 
lecting and remembering the events and condens- 
ir:g results of whole years into the space of a mo- 
ment, the long series of coldness by which all 
these young feelings had been checked and dead- 
ened, from the period of her sacrificing her first 
love at the shrine of filial duty and affection, to 
that in which she was now sitting, herself the mo- 
ther of a being possessed of all those feelings, by 
the encouragement and the subsequent blight of 
which she had been condefnned to a life of perpe- 
tual probation ; and she almost wished that the 
heart of her darling Agnes was as cold as the 
world in whicli it was created to exist. 

“ It .s time, Mrs. Fleming,” said her husband, 
in his formal and imperturbable manner, “ that 
Agnes should enjoy the advantages you speak of. 
IN* at u re may do well enough for the canaille^ but 
I would hii^e my daughter well taught, and well 
bred ; and we cannot be too much obliged to my 
si.ster ijady Pomeroy, for the infinite pains she has 
taken with Amelia. Laoy Pomeroy, will you 
send P ogville to Mrs. Fleming to-morrow?” 

Lady Pomeroy, who was quite as much an ad- 
vocate for artificial education as her brother, 
gladly undertook the task. Mrs. Fleming, as 
usual, did not object, though she thought the na- 
tural movements of her darling Agnes far more 
graceful than any that could be given by art; 
while Agnes herself only saw in the proposition 
the delight of having a dancing-master, without 
anticipating the restraint her hitherto free limbs 
were condemned to undergo. 

The indulgence, however, of any appearance 
of extravagant pleasure, was repressed by the 
frowns of her father, and by her aunt’s directing 
her tu imitate the quiet and lady-like behavior of 
her si* ter, who divided her fruit, and sipped her 
wine, as though she had no pleasure in partaking 
of them ; and dipped her taper fingers into the 
crystal finger-glass with all the airs and graces of a 
little woman of fashion. 

It had been fixed that they should this evening 
visit the theatre ; and notwithstanding all her mo- 
ther’s coaxing and hushing, Agnes could not re- 
strain her impatience at the delay of the carriage ; 
she started at every sound, with an exclamation 
of “There it is!” and on each disappointment, 
rather vehemently expressed her fear of being too 
late. 

All this was frowned at by her father, and 
nodded down by her aunt; while Amelia felt, or 
at least betrayed, no impatience or any anticipation 
of pleasure. 

At length the carriage was announced. Agnes 
sprang from her mother’s knee; her shawl was 
thrown hastily round her shoulders, without any 
regard to appearance or form ; and she was in the 
hall and ready to depart, while her sister’s maid 
was still folding a cashmere gracefully on the neck 
of Amelia, under the superintendence of Lady 
Pomeroy. 

In spite of the delays occasioned by the cere- 
mony of dressing out her sister, and of her father’s 
methodical movements, which to the imagination 


of poor Agnes, seemed to proceed in doubly slow 
time this evening, they arrived at the theatre just 
as the curtain was rising. 

Agnes could hardly repress her delight as she 
first caught a glimpse of the stage from the private 
box; for Mr. Fleming’s ideas of propriety would 
not permit the close contact with strangers, which 
is occasioned by the occupation of a public one 
though Agnes could not help fancying that she 
should see much better in front of the theatre, than 
from one of the sides, where she was perpetually 
stretching her neck out of the box to the great dis- 
comfiture of her father, and to the horror of her 
well-bred aunt. 

To her the scene was a new one, and every part 
of it afforded her pleasure ; the people — the chan- 
deliers — the house — the scenery — by turns ex- 
torted exclamations of childish delight; and she 
was perpetually directing her mother’s attention, 
who alone heeded her, to one or other of the 
objects which excited her admiration. 

In the mean time, Amelia sat in front of the 
box, with the folds of her cashmere undisturbed ; 
the pride of her father and aunt, and certainly 
very beautiful. 

As the play proceeded, the raptures of Agnes 
subsided : she became silent and attentive — wrapt 
up in the scene she was witnessing, her whole 
soul seemed absorbed in the horrors of the tragedy 
before them ; when, to the consternation of Lady 
Pomeroy, at a moment when the whole house 
was wrapt in silent admiration of the powers of 
Mrs. Siddons, poor Agnes burst into a convulsive 
fit of tears, which were beyond her power to 
restrain or control, and her tender mother was 
obliged to hush her to tranquillity in a retired 
part of the box, by repeated representations that 
the scene was but fictitious. 

It was some time, however, before sihe could 
imagine that all which she had seen was not real; 
nor did she quite overcome her feelings of terror 
and regret at the catastrophe of Isabella, until the 
humors of the harlequinade which follow^ed, again 
absorbed her attention. 

Here again her laughter at the tricks of the 
clown and pantaloon ; her surprise at the agility 
of Harlequin and Columbine ; and her childish 
exclamations of wonder at metamorphoses, which 
seemed to realize all that she had read in the 
Fairy Tales that constituted part of her infan- 
tine library, once more offended the punctilious 
bienseance of Lady Pomeroy. 

During the whole exhibition, Amelia sat appa- 
rently an attentive spectator; but her cold and 
beautiful blue eye denoted no sympathy with the 
scene ; her countenance betrayed no wonder at the 
tricks of the pantomime ; nor could all the contor- 
tions of the clown produce more than a quiet 
smile upon her well-formed lips. And yet Amelia 
had not witnessed the tragedy without feeling; 
nor did she now contemplate the wonders of the 
pantomime without pleasure; but she had been 
schooled into a repression of all its appearances. 
She had been taught that the expressions of won- 
der or any show of sensibility was unpolite and 
unlady-like. And the outw^ard ease which she 
was thus compelled to wear, was gradually in- 
durating the heart beneath it. It was already 
acting as a frost upon the stream of her youthful 


THE ROU^:. 


Q 


di^'position, and nipping the generosity of her na- 
ture in the bud. 

Not all the influence of her mother, nor the 
formal reproofs of her father and aunt could re- 
press the prattle of Agnes as the carriage whirled 
them home. Question followed question, and won- 
der succeeded wonder, as she recapitulated all she 
had seen : and Amelia was buried in sleep long 
before Agnes had finished her relation of all the 
wonders she had witnessed to her maid. 

Mrs. Fleming had contemplated the diflferent 
characters of her children, as they were exhibited 
that evening, with equal regret. She mourned 
ftver the schooled mannerism of the one, as much 
as she dreaded the acute sensibilities of the other. 
She would have warmed, had she possessed the 
power, the heart and feelings of Amelia with 
a little of the Promethean fire which burnt too 
strongly in the spirit of Agnus — a spirit, alas ! 
too like her own, and which, as she recalled all the 
early scenes of her own existence, made her trem- 
ble for the happiness of her daughter. As these 
scenes and circumstances recurred to her imagina- 
tion and remembrance, she meqtally exclaimed — 
“ Ought r not rather to school her into the insensi- 
bility of her sister, than encourage feelings which 
may blossom only to be blighted 1 Is it not better 
fc r her to be insensible to the more exquisite plea- 
sures of our nature, than run the hazard of their 
being turned to bitterness, as mine have been 1 

Yet with all the experience of her own blighted 
hopes, with all the remembrance of the miseries 
entailed on her by her own acute sense of feeling, 
she could not resolve to wish the heart of Agnes to 
be cold or inanimate. 

But the sensibility of her nature was now daily 
developing to the anxious observation of an affec- 
tionate and trembling mother; who, fqr the sake 
of her child, began to dread the death, which she 
had long anticipated from her increasing feeble- 
ness, but which had no terrors for her in its 
approach. 

She now, however, saw the necessity of a kind 
directing hand ; and too plainly perceived that the 
severity of ceremony which characterized Mr. Flem- 
ing, was not adapted to the education and guidance 
of such a heart and mind as those of Agnes were, 
in their germs, and promised to be in their ma- 
turity. 

She determined, therefore, to struggle with the 
incipient consumption, which had already tinted 
her cheek with that bright and beautiful spot, 
which has too often deceived both its victims and 
their friends. Alas ! the very struggle of life un- 
der such a disease only tends to its speedier ex- 
haustion. But for her young and innocent child 
she could resolve to live, although life had long 
lost all its charms for her ; to subdue the excess 
of feeling, which had already begun to display 
itself, without banishing it entirely ; to regulate 
her sensibilties, without annihilating them; to 
place a sound judgment, and a pure sense of reli- 
gion, as sentinels over an exuberant fancy, and a 
wild imagination, was the plan of education which 
occupied the mind of this tender mother, as she 
reclined upon her sleepless pillow ; and for which 
of us has not the pillow of a parent been sleepless 
through many a long night] — for which of us has 


it not been bathed with tears of agonizing anxiety 
as to the future welfare of a beloved child ? 

As her love mingled with the fears of Agnes, a 
mother’s voice breathed a fervent prayer to the 
great Director of all hearts for the happiness of her 
child. 



CHAPTER II. 

The early history of Mrs. Fleming, with that 
of many young women whose fashion is superior 
to their fortune, and whose parents rather consider 
the establishment than the happiness of their 
child. Born with all the genuine feelings of her 
sex, with a heart capable of loving warmly, and 
with ideas that marriage should be the result only 
of affection, she yielded up her young heart to its 
impulses in favor of a person a few years older 
than herself, whose talents for conversation and 
powers of entertainment had made him a frequent 
and a welcome guest at her father’s table. 

To procure establishments for a numerous family, 
was the great and only ambition of her mother. 
Lady Mary Dorn ton. ^ 

It was this lady’s policy, therefore, to render her 
dinner-table and drawing-room as attractive as 
gayety, talent, and entertainment could make 
them; and she felt proud in the contemplation of 
her success, as three married daughters sometimes 
graced the paternal board, while the scions of 
many of her contemporary rival matrons yet moved 
on in single blessedness. 

She had still, however, a daughter to dispose of ; 
and the Honorable Mr. Dornton’s declining health 
made her dread a circumstance which, by leaving 
her only in possession of a widow s jointure, would 
prevent the continuance of her system, and deprive 
them of the advantages and facilities which crowd- 
ed drawing rooms, and quadrilles, and duetts, 
afford to young ladies and manoeuvring mammas. 

Lady Mary had married a younger brother, and 
was not like some of her contemporaries, whose 
fortunes enabled them to render their houses and 
tables attractive by the sumptuousness of their 
feasts, and the splendor of their entertainments. 
She, therefore, had recourse to all the talent of the 
day, as an attraction to counterbalance the advan- 
tage which superior fortunes gave so many of her 
competitors in the field of matrimonial speculation. 

But younger brothers were not Lady Mary's 
objects now, though she had not disdained one in 
her youth. They were not likely to afford establish- 
ments of sufficient consequence to provide her a 
periodical residence when the dreaded event wo 
have alluded to should occur ; end it was her plan 
that her daughter’s houses should be such as would 
enable them to return in kind, in her old age and 
widowhood, that which she had done for them in 
their youth ; in short, in all their establishments, 
she had an eye to her own future comforts. 

Unfortunately, however, her scheme, though it 
eventually succeeded, kept the hearts of her daugh- 
ters in a perpetual state of rebellion against their 
interests. They could not associate with talent ^ 


10 


THE R0U£. 


without teeling its influence; they could not hear 
soft and sweet music from the voice of one man, 
resplendant repartee from the lips of another, and 
feel a deep interest in the voyages, adventures, and 
“ hair breadth ’scapes” of a third, and turn round 
and bestow their admiration and affection upon 
one who was, perhaps, looking only with envy 
upon those qualifications, without possessing any 
of them, and whose only claim to admiration was 
a title or an estate, unencumbered by any thing 
but his owm dullness and stupidity. 

Yet this was precisely what Lady Mary wished 
and expected her daughters to do ; and consequently 
there was not one of them married to the man whom 
Jier own heart would have preferred, had it been 
left free and unbiassed in its choice. 

It has often struck us that the heads of a family 
are not justified in the admission of any person 
into the intimate society of their children, to whom, 
ehould an attachment occur, there would be any 
decided objection. They should recollect that young 
hearts do not discriminate like old heads, and should 
be careful how they introduce talent, cheerfulness, 
and pleasantry, united with youth, and perhaps per- 
sonal attraction, while their possessors are persons 
to whom they would object as husbands for their 
daughters. 

Among those who were frequent and welcome 
guests at the table and in the drawing room of 
Lady Mary Dorn ton, was Augustus Clifton. He 
had just quitted college, and had commenced his 
literary career by a poem, which had given notoriety 
to his name, and which of course became a visiting 
ticket to parties where talent was the passport for 
admittance. 

But Clifton was not a hackneyed poet. His pro- 
duction was that of impulse rather than education. 
He had portrayed the passions, not as he had read 
them, but as he felt them growing up in his own 
heart. He was a poet by nature, and all nature 
appeared to his y^ung and unsullied imagination 
but as a beautiful poem; he considered all his un- 
defined longings, all his incipient passions, only as 
so many legitimate passports to enjoyment. He 
had, indeed, the mind of a true poet ; he looked at 
every thing abstractedly ; he loved nature, he loved 
the world, and called it a beautiful world, because 
all things seemed to conspire to his wishes. He 
loved fame too, and wished to live in futurity. He 
could not bear that with his life his name should 
pass away ; he wished that it might be enrolled 
among the master spirits of poetry in the abbey ; 
he wished posterity to read it recorded with those 
from whose works he quoted so frequently and so 
aptly. He could not bear that 

He should be left, forgotten in the dust. 

When fate, relenting, lets the flower revive. 

One vigorous effort of a young mind had gained 
him a celebrity which he was inexperienced enough 
to suppose would stand him in the stead of rank 
and fortune ; he imagined the caresses and the in- 
vitations he received on all hands to be the perma- 
nent result of respect for his talents, instead of the 
evanescent feeling which would last only so long 
as he could afford entertainment. He believed the 
professions of assistance which he received to be 
sincere, and imagined that he saw a hand ready to 


help him up every step of the ladder of fame, and 
that fortune waited to welcome him at the top of 
it. 

He had yet to learn that selfish vanity was the 
groundwork of all the kindness he received, and 
that the moment his presence ceased to gratify tins 
passion in his admirers, they would cease to remem- 
ber that he existed. 

He little thought that his patrons of the moment 
would treat him as they did their champagne, enjoy 
its sparkling qualities, and dash aside the bottle 
which contained them the moment they ceased to 
exhilarate. Unfortunately for poor Mrs. Fleming, 
at the moment of Clifton’s first introduction, her 
mother’s mind was so intensely occupied with her 
manoeuvres to make her third daughter the lady of 
a young baronet who had succeeded to an estate of 
seven thousand a year, that she was permitted, un- 
molested, to form her own little coteries in the 
drawing room, to secure the arm and the compan- 
ionship of the one she liked best to the dinner 
table, and was allowed sufficient leisure to see and 
appreciate the talent which was considered by her 
mother only as an appendage to her party. 

There was an artless buoyancy in the conversa- 
tion of Augustus that rendered it quite unlike that 
of the hackneyed diner-out and that of the professed 
wits, who appeared made up for the occasion ; and 
Agnes thought she perceived under all his brilliancy 
a goodness of heart and generosity of nature which 
she had herself sense and heart enough to appre- 
ciate far beyond the qualities which merely aflbrded 
entertainment. There was, likewise, that con- 
geniality of disposition and sentiment so often exist- 
ing between young, lively, and virtuous minds at 
their first entrance into the world, which drew them 
together. She found in his conversation all her 
own feelings expressed in much better and stronger 
language than that in which she could dress them 
up. Her heart silently acquiesced in the propriety 
of all he said, until imperceptibly he became the 
lawgiver to her feelings — the glass in which she 
moulded every action of her life ! and she found 
herself perpetually thinking what he would say of 
this, and what he would think of that. 

On his part, he was charmed with her naivete, 
and his heart was flattered by her evident, though 
silent admiration. In time, he strove only to shine 
in her eyes ; and at any sally of his wit, he turn- 
ed to her smile as the principal meed of approba- 
tion. In short, what with music and poetry, and 
congeniality of sentiment, they went on and on, 
till they found themselves passionately in love with 
each other ; and unfortunately not with that evanes- 
cent passion, the result of a few quadrilles and 
fine speeches, but with a love arising from a know- 
ledge of the qualities of each other’s hearts. 

Young and ingenuous, they were not long in 
coming to an explanation, or at least to an under- 
standing of each other’s sentiments ; for feelings 
like theirs required no set forms of speech to make 
them known. — Their eyes, the sound of each 
other’s voices, their parting and meeting tremors, 
the searching looks of the one and the retiring 
glances of the other, soon disclosed niqje than 
wffiole hours of formal declaration could have done. 

At length, however, the moment of declaration 
came ; the tongue gave utterance to those feelings 
which the eyes had already expressed ; mutual 


THE ROUfi. 


11 


VOWS, such vows as pass woman^s lips but once, 
and springing warm from the heart, were given and 
received, and they felt rich in all the feelings of a 
first and young love ; and who is there that under 
this influence does not overlook every obstacle to 
its gratification ] What difficulties does it not hide 
from the inexperienced or blinded eyes of the 
lovers ! what path does it not smooth ! what pro- 
spects does it not brighten ! 

It was thus with Augustus and Agnes. He felt 
that within him which might procure fortune, 
though he was not possessed of it ; and she fondly 
thought that her parents would overlook this defi- 
ciency, as she was the only person who would have 
to suffer the privations arising from its absence. 

Filled with these ideas, they gave themselves 
cp to the indulgence of their mutual love, nor 
woke from their pleasing dream until the third sister 
was married ; and Lady Mary Dornton informed 
Agnes that proposals had been made in due form 
for her hand by Mr. Fleming, the only son of the 
rich Russian merchant whose wealth enabled him 
\o outvie in splendor the proudest and the oldest 
aristocracy of the country. 

Poor Agnes ! it was some time before she could 
even bring to memory the person of this man, who 
now declared himself a candidate for her hand. 
He had sat unnoticed amidst the brilliant sallies 
of wit which graced her mothers table; and it 
was a long time before Lady Mary could bring to 
her recollection a very formal gentleman, who had 
twice asked her to dance a quadrille, and had three 
or four times taken wine with her at dinner. 

When at length she did recollect a precise young 
gentleman, dressed to the very nicety of propriety, 
full of set speeches upon points of etiquette and 
appearance in the world, and was told by her mother, 
that she must prepare to receive this gentleman as 
her husband, in a tone that seemed so peremptory, 
as to take no denial and admit of no argument, — 
poor Agnes was thunder-struck. Her first impulse 
was to tell the true state of her feelings — but the 
words seemed glued to her lips ; all she could mur- 
mur in her mother’s ear was, “No — no — no,” — and 
she burst into tears. Lady Mary soothed her, 
praised her own and her father’s anxiety for the 
happiness and welfare of their children, and spoke 
so much of parental tenderness, that Agnes began 
to think her heart rebellious and ungrateful to have 
a wish contrary to those of such kind parents. 




CHAPTER HI. 

We will pass over the explanation, and terror, 
and grief of the young lovers ; the sudden determi- 
nation to fly from parents, friends, and the world, 
and give up all for love, and the struggle with which 
Agnes brought herself again into the line of her 
duty. Their hearts, their feelings were in an up- 
roar. At one time they determined to throw them- 
selves at the feet of her parents, tell the devoted ness 
of their love, and appeal to their mercy. At this 
period Mr. Dornton died. 

The real grief of Agnes for the death of her 
father, and the ceremonials of widowhood on the 


part of her mother, for a time suspended all other 
considerations; Augustus’s sympathy, however, in 
her loss only fixed the heart of poor Agnes more firmly 
upon him. She had one less to love in the world, 
and the love which was thus deprived of its object, 
seemed to render that which she felt for Augustus 
the stronger. 

It was during this period of mourning that the 
absence of company, and the comparative solitude 
in which they lived, gave Lady Mary the opportu- 
nity of discovering the true state of her daughter’s 
affections, and her repugnance to the marriage with 
Mr. Fleming was accounted for. This marriage 
was, however, more than ever desirable since the 
death of her husband, and the before-mentioned 
jointure had become her only reliance, and she de- 
termined to leave no scheme untried to accomplish 
it. The expensive life she had led, had totally 
precluded the possibillity of any provision being 
made for Agnes ; she therefore worked upon her 
generous feelings, by the argument of a portionless 
wife being a burthen upon the talents of Augustus, 
and being likely to keep him in a state of dependence 
and poverty all his life. Poor Agnes felt that these 
would be nothing were they shared with him she 
loved ; but her generous soul recoiled from the idea 
of being a clog upon the talents she admired ; and 
she looked forward with something like dismay to 
the possibility of self-reproach, should any period 
arrive in which she might be an impediment to the 
fortune or exertions of Augustus. 

On the other hand. Lady Mary sent for Clifton, 
and represented to him the injustice of his prevent- 
ing the establishment of Agnes, while there was no 
probability of his having one to offer her — pro- 
fessed that had Agnes been possessed of a fortune 
sufficient for them both, that their union would 
have made her happy — nay, went so far as to say, 
that had her jointure not been so very inconsider- 
able, or had it been sufficient for them all to have 
lived upon it, she would have sanctioned their union, 
and given them a home, until his talents and exer- 
tions could win their way to the success they de- 
served ; but her much admired Mr. Clifton must 
feel, she said, that it was impossible for her to con- 
sign her daughter to poverty; and she was sure 
that his own affection for Agnes would prevent his 
being a party to such a sacrifice. She represented 
the luxury in which she had been accustomed to 
live; and contrasted it with the probable state to 
which her marriage with Augustus would reduce 
her, and portrayed her sinking silently and uncom- 
plainingly under the contemptuous pity of her for- 
mer companions. 

Clifton felt the full force of all she said, and 
quitted her broken hearted. 

Agnes was thus separated from her lover, and 
left to all the schemes and manoeuvres of Lady 
Mary. But it is disgusting to dwell on all the cold 
blooded, selfish policy, which actuates a mother, 
determined on the sacrifice of a daughter. It is re- 
volting to human nature, to think upon the many 
hearts immolated upon the shrine which the sel- 
fishness of relations creates ; and upon the thousand 
schemes which are successful only in too many in- 
.stances to subject their victims to temptaiKnis, 
which lead them into errors, to which the opposition 
of parental authority upon such a point, would have 
been venial. 


12 


THE ROUE. 


Suffice it to say, that the distress of her mother, 
and her filial affection, at length so wrought upon 
her heart, that she first consented to listen to her 
mother’s proposals on the part of Mr. Flem- 
ing, and at length to listen to Mr. Fleming him- 
self. 

She persuaded herself, that Clifton being lost, 
there was no other hope of happiness for her ; and 
with her usual romantic tendency, determined to 
sacrifice herself for her mother ; quieting her con- 
science on the subject of her love for another, by 
the intention of making an exemplary wife. Per- 
haps, too, unknown to herself, sho was influenced 
by the perfect silence of Augustus, — a silence that 
was tacitly insinuated to have arisen from the cer- 
tainty that he had obtained of her having no for- 
tune. 

This idea she rejected, however, indignantly ; but 
still the silence, the apparent and total abandonment 
she had experienced, had its effect upon feminine 
pride — (and what woman is without it?) — and 
helped her mother’s schemes. 

Poor Augustus, always in extremes, influenced 
by the arguments of Lady Mary, generously and 
at once sacrificed his feelings to what he considered 
the interests of Agnes ; and having once come to 
this determination, he did it completely. But could 
Agnes have beheld him in his solitary chambers, 
gazing on every remembrance he possessed of their 
short and unhappy loves ; could she have known 
of his sleepless nights, and have beheld his pale wan 
cheek, growing hourly paler and thinner, not even 
the Ipve she bore her mother, not even her high 
sense of duty would have made her relinquish 
hi.m. 

Well, Mr. Fleming was at length admitted ; 
brought and formally introduced, in his character as 
/an approved lover, by Lady Mary, and left alone 
with Agnes to tell his own tale. 

As she coldly listened to his formal address, how 
did her poor heart sicken at the contrast between 
the set terms, the studied sentences, the etiquette 
of his declaration, and the fire and feeling of Clif- 
ton, when an accidental circumstance drew from 
his bursting heart the full and free confession of a 
first and genuine love. 

But this thought was dangerous, and she did not 
indulge it. She reflected on her mother’s reduced 
means — she anticipated something like the return 
of pleasure in adding to her comforts, and she ac- 
cepted Mr. Fleming. 

From this moment, all was bustle and importance 
on the part of Lady Mary. Paragraphs in the 
public papers hinted at the approaching union — 
friends poured in with congratulations — her sisters, 
relieved from the dread of her being a poor un- 
portioned dependent ; all contributed to give eclat 
to, and to hasten the accomplishment of their 
mother’s wishes. Agnes had scarcely any time 
left for thought; and she herself felt its indulgence 
to be too dangerous to encourage it. 

Augustus read in the solitude of his chambers 
paragraph after paragraph, with initials the same as 
those which were inscribed on a pale gold ring, the 
only gift of his adored Agnes. As the nuptials 
annroached, the papers spoke out more plainly; 
and at length, the approaching union of “ the rich 
Mr. Henry Fleming with the youngest daughter 
of the fashionable Lady Mary Dornton,” was 


openly announced. His eye was fascinated to the 
paragraph. 

He had vainly thought that his mind was made 
up to the event which be felt must one day or other 
he accomplished ; he imagined he had wrought his 
heart into that state of insensibility, that would 
enable him to contemplate w'ith stoicism the catas- 
trophe of his first love. 

Poor youth ! — at three-and-twenty he attempted 
a task which nothing but constant collision with a 
cold-blooded world can enable any warm heart to 
accomplish. 

Agnes, on her part, was not less unhappy ; but 
feminine delicacy prevented its appearance any 
where but in the silence of her chamber; there 
she still indulged those recollections which a few 
weeks would now render criminal. She still looked 
on every token of her first lover’s affection, as they 
lay humbly by the side of Mr. Fleming’s more 
splendid, but far less cherished, gifts, on her toilet 
table. 

She had been gradually working up her mind to 
the necessity of sacrificing these tokens ; but she 
still preserved them to the last possible moment, 
that she could retain and gaze upon them without 
a crime. She would not run the risk of communi- 
cation, or of hurting the feelings of Augustus by 
returning them ; nor would she hazzard their ever 
being worn by any but herself. They were con- 
secrated to the first and only love she had ever ex- 
perienced ; and she consigned them to destruction 
along with the passion of which they had been the 
tokens. At length, on the evening preceding the 
morning fixed for her marriage, she worked up her 
mind to the dreaded task — she desired her maid to 
replenish the fire in her dressing-room, and retire 
for the night. 

For some time she moved restlessly about her 
room, without being able to assume sufficient reso- 
lution. • She determined to curb this restlessness, 
and sat down doggedly to the fire. Her eye fixed 
upon the rising flames, with scarcely less feeling 
than that which the victim of some horrid sacri- 
fice might be supposed to contemplate the fire upon 
the altar, on which she was to be immolated. From 
the fire, her eye wandered round the apartment : 
resting first on the humble ornaments, and a pile 
of sonnets, sent to her by Augustus; then on the 
more splendid decorations which glittered proudly 
in the jewel-case which had been forwarded that 
evening from Rundell’s. 

She seized upon the few ornaments she had 
received from Clifton, kissed them again and again, 
gazed upon them, and one by one committed them 
to the fire, which was now intense enough to ac- 
complish their destruction easily. She had more 
difficulty in parting from the letters and poems. 
Each was an illustration of the heart of the writer, 
and of the passion by which he w^as inspired. 
Every line brought the moment of its composition 
fresh to her recollection, with all the vivid feelings 
which accompanied it. 

The dearer, however, she found them to be, the 
greater she felt the necessity for their destruction. 
Wet with her tears, she threw them one after 
another into the flames; and they soon dropped in 
sparkling and blackened fragments on the hearth, 
fit illustrations o f her darkened prospects and de- 
stroyed hopes. 


THE ROUE. 


13 


As she watched the destruction of the first son- 
net he had ever addressed to her, and which she 
had reserved till the last, a burst of grief issued in 
sighs and groans from her overwhelmed heart. She 
started — was it imagination, or did she really hear 
her sigh re-echoed in the direction of the window ] 
She listened with breathless attention. A rustling, 
stronger than that of the night breeze, seemed for 
a moment to agitate the trees which ov,erhung her 
casement — a moan, louder than that of the whist- 
ling of the wind, seemed to meet her ear. and all 
was again silent. 

Could it be possible 1 thought she — could it be 1 
IV o, no ! the height of her window from the ground, 
the difficulty of access to the gardens behind 
the houses she inhabited — all forbade the supposi- 
tion. She chid herself for having one moment 
indulged in it, and wept away the night in fruitless 
regrets for the past and gloomy anticipations for the 
future, and in vain attempts to reduce her feelings 
to that state of tranquillity which the ceremony of 
the coming day required. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The day appointed for the nuptials came. It 
was a clear bright morning in early Spring; the 
stunted plants in the square which Agnes inhabited, 
had already put forth their half grown buds in spite 
of the smoky atmosphere of the metropolis ; the 
sun shone in at the windows of her dressing room 
with a cheerfulness that seemed a mockery to the 
feelings within.^ The busy, early world of London 
was on the wing, and Agnes’s maid was decorating 
her for her wedding. 

Carriage after carriage arrived, and set down the 
invited guests at Lady Mary Dornton’s;. all was 
hurry and bustle and congratulation ; and the for- 
mal Mr. Fleming was gratified by the numerous 
coronets appearing to various branches of his bride’s 
family, which were assembled to grace the approach- 
ing ceremony. 

His ambition had been to ally himself with no- 
bility ; and the crowd of titled cousins of his in- 
tended wife, from the first to the sixteenth degree, 
for Lady Mary had assembled them all, convinced 
him that his wealth had purchased noble connec- 
tions by wholesale ; and his vanity was delighted 
to think that a little hour would see him the cou- 
sin, by marriage, to at least one sixth of the coro- 
neted heads of the kingdom. 

His was a mind and heart untouched by the 
sacred fire of feeling; the ethereal spark of 
existence seemed omitted in his composition ; all 
was dull, dense matter; the whole extent of his 
perceptions reached not beyond the ceremony and 
etiquette of that society to which he had gained ad- 
mission only by his enormous wealth. The great- 
est misery to himself, and the greatest crime in 
others, was to offend against that bienseance, in the 
study of which he had forgotten whether he had 
ever possessed a heart. 

The language of passion was as far removed 
from his powers as its feelings ; he had no concep- 
tion of marriage beyond its ceremony and the con- 


nection he was to acquire by it. The kind of 
woman by whom these wishes were to be accom- 
plished was nearly indifferent to him, and it was 
by mere accident that he found the opportunity’ of 
accomplishing them, through the medium of one 
so lovely and so amiable as Agnes. 

Such was the bridegroom destined to lead to the 
altar a young and ardent wmman, who had pictured 
her future husband as a hero, and a man of senti- 
ment and talent; such the man to become entitled 
to all those warm and generous feelings which had 
been yielded with the ardor of a first love, to a 
man who promised to realize all her youthful an- 
ticipations; such was the frigid successor to the 
fiery and impetuous Augustus Clifton. 

Agnes entered the drawing-room, surrounded by 
her mother and married sisters, and supported by 
her bridesmaids, whose ' laughing countenances, 
sparkling eyes, and rosy dimples, formed strong 
contrasts to the pallid and sunken cheek and dijii 
eye of the bride, which appeared tearless from ex- 
haustion, rather than from the absence of sorrow. 

I'he signal was now given for departure, and all 
the horses’ heads were turned in the direction of 
St. James’s; the bridegroom’s carriage being the 
first, that he might be in readiness to receive his 
bride at the altar. 

At the first sight of the church the shuddering 
of Agnes returned — Supported by her mother, she 
tottered up the aisle, and, surrounded by the splen- 
did and fashionable circle, stood in front of the 
clergyman, and in the face of that altar where she 
was to vow love, honor and obedience to one, to 
whom, alas, she could only ensure the latter. That, 
she reflected, was in her power. She cast one 
glance on her mother ; thought upon the reasons 
of her devoted sacrifice ; bowed her head to the 
clergyman, as the lovely flower bows before the 
storm it cannot resist, and the ceremony com- 
menced. 

Mr. Fleming made his responses in a loud and 
sonorous voice, precisely in the same manner as he 
would have done at the Liturgy in the Morning 
Prayer. The officiating priest dropped his voice 
into a more piano tone as he put the necessary 
questions to the bride. Her responses, if she made 
them, were inarticulate and inaudible ; but she 
breathed hardly, and he was too well-bred not to 
imagine them made, as things of course, and pro- 
ceeded. 

An icebolt seemed to shoot through her heart as 
the ring which sealed her fate was placed on her 
finger ; and, as she sunk on her knees to hear the 
blessing and prayer which concludes the ceremony, 
she almost wished the pavement would open, and 
sink her into the charnel-house beneath. 

The clergyman closed the book. Every head 
was bowed down, apparently in a secret aspirahon 
to heaven — when the dead silence of the church 
was broken by one convulsive sob that burst from 
a distant part of the building, and sounded like the 
last effort of a breaking heart. 

The bride started to her feet, and sunk senseless 
into her mother’s arms ; they two alone, of all this 
assembly, knew from whose bosom the appalling 
groan had been extorted. 

Every eye was turned in the direction from which 
the cry had proceeded, but there was no one there ; 
the galleries appeared empty, and many were the 


14 


THE ROHJ3. 


silly expressions of surprise and fear uttered by the 
young misses, and exclamations of “ What can it 
mean?” “Who can it be?” that came from the 
lips of the elder ladies of the party. Eau de Co- 
logne and otto of roses were in great request. 

The bridegroom only exclaimed, that it was very 
unceremonious and improper ; and adding, that the 
canaille ought to be excluded from the churches 
appropriated to people of fashion, followed his bride 
into the vestry, to see if she was recovered from her 
fainting fit, and to perform the other ceremonials of 
the occasion. 

Agnes was recovered, but looked paler than be- 
fore. Her husband now Jed her out of the church; 
and as she passed along, her eye was observed to 
wander in every direction, and to peruse every 
countenance that gazed at her, with an intensity 
which seemed to imply an expectation which she 
Tlreadcd, yet wished to realize. As she entered the 
carriage, also, she gazed wildly among the crowd 
that surrounded the church doors, nor withdrew her 
eager glance until the whirling vehicle left the ad- 
miring populace at a distance. 

White favors were now distributed among the 
servants. Coarse jests passed from footman to 
footman. The different carriages, after a sumptu- 
ous breakfast, rolled through the streets of London, 
all proclaiming the ceremony of the morning; and 
the papers the next day announced that the happy 
pair had quitted town to spend the honey-moon at 
“ Fleming-hall,” which had recently been newly 
and splendidly furnished preparatory to the nuptials 
of the wealthy proprietor. 

Years past on, and yet her heart-sickness re- 
mained. She could not assimilate her mind with 
all the little forms and ceremonies which made up 
the serious business of Mr. Fleming’s life, and which 
pervaded every thing he did. All the warm chari- 
ties of her heart, in which her present fortune 
allowed her to indulge, were prevented from giving 
her the comfort she might otherwise have derived 
from the exercise of them, by her not being per- 
mitted to dispense them in any other way than 
tlirough the ceremonious means of an almoner. 

It was contrary to his received ideas of propriety, 
that Mrs. Fleming should come in contact with the 
peasantry on his estate, whom he never conde- 
scended to see, except at Christmas, or on some 
family occasion, when he would imitate older ter- 
ritorial proprietors, by regaling them in his hall or 
in his park. 

Her mother lived but a very short time to enjoy 
the fruit of the sacrifice, which was thus rendered 
useless; yet Agnes still made an exemplary wife, 
though the pallid cheek and attenuated form be- 
spoke the deep inroad which unrequited feeling was 
gradually making upon her constitution. 

Perhaps there is nothing more wearing to the 
mind than that attention to minutiae which meets 
one at every turning ; nothing so harassing to the 
feelings of a warm and generous heart, teeming 
with all the best impulses of human nature, as to be 
trammelled with perpetual ceremony, and to be com- 
pelled to watch one’s looks and words with a lynx- 
eyed attention, lest something escape that may not 
be strictly correct according to the established code 
of punctilious politeness. 

I’he birth of her children opened a source of 
delight to her ; but this was again stopped by the 


many ceremonies which attended their education, 
and by the thousand absurd ideas which Mr. Flem- 
ing had imbibed, with regard to the children of 
people of a certain rank. 

In short, Mr. Fleming was a man of mere mi- 
nutiae and ceremony ; his very soul had felt the 
influence of his dancing master, and seemed to 
have been put in the stocks with his feet. He 
attempted to form himself upon the model of Ches- 
terfield, according to the letter, and not according 
to the spirit of his system ; and became a perfect 
specimen of an iced man. 

His religion and hospitality were all mere cere- 
mony without devotion or heartiness. His ideas 
of the one were satisfied by the exhibition of his 
person, and by making the responses in an audible 
voice, in a crimson-lined pew from a morocco- 
bound prayer-book; and the duties of the other 
were performed by periodical state-dinners, in which 
the admiration of his guests at his wines and en- 
tertainment was more considered than the kindness 
of their welcome. 

January and July ; Cayenne pepper and iced- 
crearn; curry-powder and snow; did not form a 
stronger contrast than Mr. and Mrs. Fleming: 
and such were the parents of Amelia and Agnes, — 
the one ail form, the other ail feeling. 




CHAPTER V. 

Among the many follies of Fashion, “ leader of 
chattering train,” which have influenced society in 
modern times, may be reckoned the absolute neces- 
sity there is, for leaving quiet, respectable and 
comfortable homes, to resort at a certain period of 
the year, to some water-drinking or sea-bathing 
place. 

Brighton was the most congenial place in the 
world to Mr, Fleming. To him it was necessary 
to breathe the atmosphere of fashion ; ail other col- 
lision was disagreeable ; and, therefore, though the 
quietude of their own estate would have been more 
conducive to the health of Mrs. Fleming, to Brigh- 
ton went the family, with a cavalcade of imperial- 
crowned carriages, which drove up with the whole 
establishment to their house on the Steyne, to the 
great pleasure of a hundred attendant tradesmen. 

All the family were soon settled in Brighton. 
The establishment was as co-mplete as in London; 
for Mr. Fleming’s wealth carried every convenience 
of life with him. In his house there was no make- 
shifts ; every thing was perfectly well appointed, or 
perhaps too well appointed ; for there was an ap- 
pearance of study even in the modern negligence 
of his drawing-room and library; and with all these 
appurtenances of fashion, London hours and cus- 
toms were, of course, imported likewise. 

On their arrival, they found cards were just 
issued for a juvenile ball to be given to the little 
scions of the fashionable elite at Brighton. It would 
not do for the Flemings to be left out: their names 
were therefore immediately inserted among those on 
the list at the Pavilion. 

From the high rank of Mrs. Fleming’s family, 
from the charm which her talents, even amidst ail 


15 


THE ROUE. 




the blight of her warm feelings, was known to 
spread over every circle which she frequented, as 
well as from the two boroughs which Mr. Fleming’s 
wealth had enabled him to procure, and the minis- 
terial use he made of his votes, his family were en- 
sured from the disappointment which so many had 
occasion to lament; and perhaps the last was the 
most influential reason for his invitation. 

Mrs. Fleming’s maternal heart was gratified with 
the pleasure she anticipated for her children ; Mr. 
Fleming’s consequence was elated ; and Lady 
Pomeroy’s vanity excited, by the card w^hich lay 
at the top of those which already crowded the 
porcelain tray that graced the table of Mrs. Flem- 
ing’s drawing-room. 

Many were the lectures and numerous the pri- 
vate drillings which the anxious Lady Pomeroy 
bestowed upon her favorite Amelia ; — 

Hands, lips, and eyes, were put to school, 

And jach instructed feature had its rule : 

and to do her justice on ♦his occasion, Agnes might 
also have participated in her cares, but that her 
little heart was so impatient in her anticipations, 
that she could brook no control, and give no time 
to the necessary attentions which her aunt re- 
quired. 

Lady Pomeroy impressed upon the mind of 
Amelia the high and courtly personages she was to 
meet. Agnes could think of nothing but the dance 
she was going to enjoy. At length the wished-for 
evening came — the mysteries of the toilet were com- 
pleted — Amelia and Agnes were paraded in the 
drawing-room to the great delight of the father’s 
pride, the mother’s aflTection, and the aunt’s vanity ; 
and away rolled the whole group with beating 
hearts to the scene of princely festivity. 

During the ride Amelia preserved her gravity, 
and never moved from a position in which it was 
impossible to crush one of the fragile flounces with 
which her dress was decorated, or disturb the long 
and beautiful ringlets into which her hair had been 
trained. Agnes, on the contrary, was wild with 
expectation, as numerous carriages dashed by their 
own, either going to or returning from the Pavilion ; 
exclamations of regret at not having arrived, and of 
fear of being too late for the first quadrille, by turns 
escaped from her parted lips, as she strained her 
eyes to catch the first glimpse of the blaze of illu- 
mination which surrounded the pavilion, and 
lighted up the faces of a thousand spectators, which 
the hope of seeing the company alight from their 
carriages had collected together. 

At length her impatience was gratified — the car- 
riage approached the door — the noiseless steps 
were let down, and the names of Mr. and Mrs. 
Fleming and family were passed from servant to 
servant, till they reached the doors of the reception- 
room. 

Even Amelia’s quiet and controlled heart beat a 
little quicker as she was condescendingly noticed 
en passant by one of those sentences which are the 
cheap yet amiable commodities with which princes 
can purchase popularity ; and even the impatient 
queries of Agnes were for a moment hushed to 
silence, as a royal hand parted the raven locks on 
her forehead to have a clearer view of the animated 
countenance which they shaded. 


Quadrilles were soon formed — every thing was 
so well arranged, that none wanted partners — all 
the young party were assembled, and the dancing 
w'as about to commence. Amelia advanced to her 
set with the dignity of a peacock — Agnes sprang to 
her place with the agility of a fawn ; and to the 
annoyance of Lady Pomeroy, burst the white san- 
dal which gracefully crossed over her taper ancle. 
The two ribands lay about half a yard upon the 
ground like streamers. But Agnes, quite unabashed, 
and not seeing the frowns of her aunt, soon disen- 
tangled her shoe from the stray ribands, and was in 
a moment with all her heart and soul in the 
mysteries of the chaseCj la irenisCy and grande 
ronde, 

Amelia moved through all her steps with the 
grace and precision of a proficient. Agnes bound- 
ed through her part in the dance as though her 
heart kept company with her feet. Her eyes 
sparkled with delight — every energy of which her 
little form'was capable was in full exertion. — Her 
ringlets waved unrestrained around h^* forehead 
and shoulders, and she seemed completely in that 
state which the French call abandonnement ; and 
in the midst of all, she was perfectly uncon- 
scious of the admiration which her animated display 
was exciting. At length, her quadrille over, she 
had leisure to attend to her partner, and for the 
first time felt, from his height, and the superior 
quietness of his manners, that he was more of a 
man than his companions. 

For a moment, a slight sense of, she knew not 
what, lighted up her countenance with a blush of 
consciousness which most intelligibly said, “What 
can he think of mel” He had, however, been 
delighted with the heart and soul which she had 
infused into every thing she did; and as he drew 
her arm within his, paid her his boyish compliments 
with an air which, at the same time that it show'ed 
he considered her as a mere child, seemed lo say, 
he began to think himself arrived at the first stage 
of manhood. 

At first Agnes was a little dashed with this ap- 
pearance of superiority ; but it soon wore off. As 
the first ice which her partner handed her dimin- 
ished, so faded the ice between herself and him. 
A thousand questions were^ asked and answered. 
“ Do you like daricingl” — “ Oh, amazingly !” and 
<‘Who is this I and w^ho is thatl” — and “ What 
is this ] and what is that P’ as a thousand curiosi- 
ties attracted her attention. From these subjects 
they passed to others of more immediate interest 
to themselves. The whole of their own little his- 
tories were detailed to each other. Before their 
ice and quadrille were ended, Agnes had told her 
partner all the secrets of her nursery — the plagues 
of her governess, with her regime — her calisthenics 
— and her ceremonies — her fear of her papa, and 
her devoted love for her mother. The Honorable 
Master Trevor had sense enough to enjoy the 
openness and sincerity of heart with which all this 
childish detail was made, and, in return, informed 
his now listening companion, that he was an Eton 
boy ; proudly boasted of his exploits at cricket, and 
the last Monten — of his excursion to Windsor — 
and all the numerous tricks in which he had joined 
his school companions, and the jeopardy in which 
they had placed him; to all of which the interested 
\ Agnes Listened iirith nearly ts much attention, as 


16 


THE ROU^! 


we may suppose Desdemona paid to the “ hair 
breadth ’scapes” of Othello. 

In the mean time, Amelia passed through the 
evening entirely to the satisfaction of Lady Pome- 
roy, and when the banquet was announced, dis- 
played her ringlets and her dress free from the 
slightest disarrangement, and a cheek quite un- 
heated from dancing. 

Agnes, on the contrary, with a glowing cheek, 
and panting from exertion, again took the arm of 
Trevor, who folded her shawl over her shoulders 
with a grace that would have done honor to three- 
and twenty, instead of fifteen, which were all the 
summers he had yet numbered — and life had, as 
yet been summer to him. The liveliness of the 
one, xind the attention of the other, had been a 
source of attraction to each of these young people ; 
and with that incipient feeling, which in after-life 
grows into flirtation, they had agreed, early in the 
evening, to manage matters so as to sit next to each 
other at supper. 

The shawl was made the convenience to accom- 
plish this, and they followed the crowd, and placed 
themselves at the table with hearts, in which there 
was not one feeling discordant with the gayety 
W'hich pervaded the scene. 

How different from those who contemplated 
them! how many anxious and corroded hearts; 
how many grievous feelings ; how many fears of 
the loss of royal favor ; and how many hopes of 
supplanting each other, were concealed under the 
diamond stomachers and necklaces, and blue and 
red ribands and sparkling stars which surround them! 

How lamentable, that in time, all those hearts 
which were then so light and gay, should become 
corrupted by passions which sprang up in a court 
as in a hotbed ! How melancholy, that the open 
brow should in time become contracted with all 
the baneful feelings of envy ; and that court in- 
trigue should succeed to all the emulation of ex- 
cellence, which is the only characteristic of youth- 
ful ambition ! 

Amelia sipped her wine, and played with her 
trifle in silence, uninterrupted, except by an elegant 
inclination of her head, when one of her youthful 
partners challenged her to a glass of wdne. 

Agnes, delighted by the thousand forms of tem- 
ples, cascades, pyramids, corronets, &c., into which 
the barley-sugar had been tortured by the confec- 
tioner’s ingenuity, and which did indeed glitter in 
the blaze of a hundred wax candles, like fairy 
palaces of amber, could not conceal her delight, 
but rattled forth her admiration to the amusement 
of the courtly people who were immediately 
around her, while Lady Pomeroy looked and frown- 
ed, and nodded her head in vain. 

At length the carriages began to be announced, 
and the unwelcome sound of “ Lady Trevor’s car- 
riage is ready,” struck upon the ears of Agnes and 
her youthful partner. 

With childish delight they had enjoyed every 
thing together — all was pleasure — and they had 
never thought of parting, or dreamt there could be 
one unpleasant sensation attendant upon an even- 
ing of so much enjoyment. 

Young as they were, however, the moment of 
separation gave a pang for which neither of them 
could account, and which neither of them could 
understand. 


Trevor tendered his hand to her for the last time, 
and was whirled away in his mother’s carriage, 
leaving Agnes, to her great surprise, no longer the 
pleased spectatress of the magnificence before her. 
The separation from her partner had left a blank 
which there was nothing to fill up; from Jjie al- 
most romp, she became silent and pensive — the 
lights seemed no longer to burn so brightly — the 
pastry palaces had lost their claims to admiration — 
the sparkling of the champagne had evaporated — 
she became listless and fatigued, and she sat ab- 
sorbed in herself, silent and sorrowful, and almost 
in tears, in the midst of that very scene, which a 
few moments before had so much delighted her; 
and listened now as anxiously for, as just before 
she had dreaded, the announcement of her mo- 
ther’s carriage, which soon bore her and her sister 
to their homes, where sleep soon gave to them 
again the fairy scene of the royal revels. 

Happy stage of life, when sleep and a few hours 
are sufficient to obliterate the greatest evils incidental 
to it — when our pleasures leave the heart uncor- 
rupted, and when our sorrows are washed out by 
the tears they occasion — 

Those tears forgot as soon as shed. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Whether the present characters of Amelia an(I 
Agnes gave already indications — the one, of a crea- 
ture all “ form;” and the other, of a being all “ feel- 
ing;” and whether we might prophesy those events 
of their after-life, which it is the intention of these 
pages to record, the sequel will show. 

The Trevors and the Flemings, although moving 
in the same circle, were not intimate : they met in 
the unceasing round of fashion ; but they did not 
visit. 

The Trevors, proud of an ancient name and of 
a family that could reckon sixteen quarterings in 
their heraldry, looked upon Mr. Fleming as a par^ 
venu ; and Mr. Fleming, with all his innate res}>ect 
for a legitimate rank, still felt the consequence and 
pride of wealth, and w'as oflended at the little 
attention that was paid him by the Trevors. 

For these slights, Mr. Fleming consoled himself 
by the superiority of his establishment, and by the 
splendor of his parties, while the Trevors afiected 
to despise the magnificent entertainments to whicii 
they received no cards; and to consider and talk 
of them as the attempts of a parvenu, to hide the 
meanness of his origin in the gorgeous and taste- 
less display of the wealth which purchased his 
place in society. 

It was true, Mrs. Fleming’s family on both sides 
was equal with their own ; but then a woman re- 
duces herself to the same rank with the man she 
marries, but never elevates him to her own ; and 
Mrs. Fleming was not a woman to receive atten- 
tions that did not extend to her husband, or to 
keep up connexions with any acquaintance that in 
the least degree slighted Mr. Fleming, to whom she 
made a point of performing all those duties and 
attentions which were within her own power to 


THE ROUE. 


17 


command, the more punctiliously, because she was 
conscious there were many into which she had 
never yet been able to school that heart which had 
been won and lost before he had an}’ claim to its 
affections. 

These feelings on each side had kept the families 
of the Trevors and the Flemings separate; but the 
young people were of that happy age which knew 
not, or did not understand, these distinctions ; and 
the next morning after the ball, therefore, brought 
/oung Trevor to pay a visit to his little partner. 

This was an attention, however, which was so 
much disapproved by his lady-mother, and so very 
coldly received by Mr. Fleming, that it was not 
repeated ; and our young Etonian was compelled 
to watch for the Miss Flemings in their walks, as 
the only means of continuing his acquaintance with 
Agnes. 

The fact was, that Trevor at fifteen, from his 
association wtth boys of sixteen and eighteen, who 
imagined themselves men, began to think that he 
was himself approaching to the period when he 
might be designated Mister instead of Master; and 
having been really struck with the fascinating 
spirits of Agnes, he fancied himself in love, and 
began to think that he should himself have a con- 
fidential communication to make to his school-circle 
in return for those to which he had often listened, 
and wondered when he too should find an oppor- 
tunity of performing the same feats as those detailed 
by his companions. 

The house occupied by the Trevors was not so 
far distant from the Flemings, but that our youth- 
ful spring of nobility could watch the movements 
of the young ladies ; the moment, therefore, that 
they quitted the Steyne with their governess, was 
the signal for the commencement of his own morn- 
ing excursion. 

VV^hile within sight of his domicile, he wander- 
ed carelessly along the cliff; but still with his eye 
fixed upon the objects of his pursuit — for he had 
learned a few of the ruses amour from his more 
experienced companions at Eton — as soon, how- 
ever, as he imagined himself out of the pale of 
observation, he quickened his pace, and directed it 
towards the little group of pedestrians on the beach, 
whom he soon contrived to overtake. 

His presence was always welcome to Agnes, 
because it gave her the opportunity of talking of 
the juvenile ball, and was never unacceptable to 
Amelia, because he was never deficient in those at- 
tentions which her aunt had always taught her 
to expect as her due from the other sex; and 
Amelia, cold as she was, was much more versed 
in all these technicalities than Agnes, who was 
only to be taught the value of these attractions by 
her own heart. 

When the governess was with them, Trevor 
knew how to make himself welcome by a hundred 
litile flattering words, which were rendered still 
more acceptable by coming from the Ups of a little 
honorable ; and when they were only accompanied 
by the maid, he remembered how maids had been 
silenced by his companions in the neighborhood 
of Windsor, and he tried the same recipe. Boys 
learn something at Eton ; and so they ought, for 
it is an expensive place. 

By this perseverance, and these means, he con- 
trived generally to be the companion of their morn- 


ing stroll. He wandered with them on the cliff — 
picked up shells and star-fish for them on the beach 
— became an expert macadamiser of pebbles — 
threw ducks and drakes on the bright calm sea — 
and made love to Agnes in his boyish way ; that 
is, they stood on the margin of the tide, till the 
white curling wave rose to their feet and then he 
would snatch her away before it could wet her 
black satin slippers — then he would look out for 
the prettiest pebbles and shells — climb the cliff for 
any flower that graced the sterile rock — or dash 
into the wave to rescue a piece of sea-weed from 
the retreating tide to add to her collection. But in 
the midst of these more boisterous and boyish at- 
tentions to Agnes, he never forgot to pay others to 
Amelia, which were quite as acceptable, since he 
never presented a pebble or a shell without a bow ; 
and he became a favorite of her’s, because he never 
met or parted from her without taking off his hat; 
and though she was shocked at the hearty shaking 
of hands, which was the never-failing accompani- 
ment of the meeting and separation of Agnes and 
Trevor; and though she could never join in their 
hearty laughs which were echoed by the cliffs when 
the waves were too quick for them, and filled their 
shoes with salt-water ; yet his prepelual politeness 
— his never-failing attention when there was a 
channel furrowed into the sand by the sea, or any 
piece of rock in the way to be got over, reconciled 
her to his company, and she always welcomed 
him with her placid smile. 

As for Agnes, she knew nothing — she thought 
of nothing but the enjoyment of the moment. She 
delighted in the company of Trevor, because he 
entered into her amusements — all was gaiety and 
sunshine : 

No sense had she of ills to come, 

No care beyond to-day. 

Trevor himself knew not the nature of his own 
feelings ; he was in a precocious state of boyhood. 
He had heard his elder companions talk of love, 
and boast of successes, of the meaning of which he 
was ignorant. He saw Agnes; his young heart 
and imagination were attracted by her charms of 
person, and her naivete of conversation, and he 
thought it would be manly, and give him something 
to tell about on his return to Eton ; having, in his 
own mind, determined to represent his lady as a 
girl of .mxteen, instead of thirteen. With this 
view, he pursued with indefatigable perseverance 
his morning rambles, for the purpose of joining the 
sisters, till he experienced sensations for the youth- 
ful Agnes, that, young as he was, made his meeting 
with her a happiness, and his parting from her a 
misery. 

Before he sought his pillow at night he would 
throw up his sash and look if there were a light 
still in her window, and his first glance in the morn- 
ing was in the same direction. 

Perhaps, too, his youthful vanity was flattered 
by the evident pleasure with which his attentions 
were received, and a zest was added to these meet- 
ings by the necessity which his heart taught him 
there was for some degree of secresy, as to the ex- 
tent of the attentions he was paying to this branch 
of the family of the Flemings. 

Thus matters proceeded at Brighton — the world 




18 


THE roue. 


came and went — stage coaches increased — the town 
was full to suffocation — prosperity made the inha- 
bitants insolent — visiters of fashion became dis- 
gusted — royalty deserted an ungrateful people, 
whose fortunes had been made by its sunshine — 
and Mr. Fleming quitted Brighton. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The London winter “ commencing in July,” as 
Lord Byron satirically observes, had now begun : 
the streets of St. James’s rattled beneath the car- 
riages of the wealthy and fashionable, and the dust 
of Hyde Park flew in clouds beneath the horses of 
the elegants, who equestrianised, and tilburised, 
and cabriolised, in the short intervals between a 
breakfast at two and a dinner at eight. 

All was hustle at the west end of the town; the 
clubs were full of lounging men, and the milliners’ 
shops were full of expensive women ; balls and bible 
societies were crowded to suffocation; the crush 
room was a perfect jam ; fans could not keep the 
Blues cool at the Royal institution ; and Almack’s 
and the House of Commons were w'ell attended. 

In short, all London life was at its zenith of 
animation. 

Mrs. Fleming’s table was already inundated with 
those pasteboard conveniences for visiting before 
the family was completely settled in Grosvenor 
Square, and she felt herself compelled, in spite 
of increasing infirmity, to enter on her usual winter 
life. 

Neither the air of the downs nor the breezes of 
the sea had added to her strength ; indeed they were 
both too sharp ; her disorder had rendered her too 
weak to find any thing but mischief in their bracing 
qualities ; but as she felt it must be the same every- 
where, and that nothing can “ administer to a mind 
diseased,” she bore it all calmly, and patiently, and 
silently, amidst the absurd forms and ceremonies of 
Lady Pomeroy, and the apathy and technical pro- 
priety of Mr. Fleming. The more she felt the 
increase of her complaint, which was unperceived, 
and silently stealing her from life, the more intense 
became her anxiety for her darling Agnes. It was 
ill vain, amidst her crowd of acquaintance, that 
she could look for one female friend in’ whom to 
confide her fears, on whom she could rely as a 
guardian, and supporter, and adviser of her child, 
when her own guiding spirit should be snatched 
from her. 

All her society consisted only of such persons 
as came within the pale admitted by Mr. Fleming 
to be fashionable and proper; and the only one of 
her sisters who was still living, was a complete, 
but a mere woman of fashion. All her hope, 
therefore, and all her trial, was to live. 

In the mean time, the different and contrasted 
characteristics of her two daughters grew with 
tlieir growth, and strengthened with their strength. 
Amelia went on progressing in her music, her 
dancing, and her manners, and time only deve- 
loped more strongly the ardent temperamant, the 
acute feeling, and the romantic tenderness of 
Agn « 


For Amelia, her mother could feel little a ixiety; 
life for her seemed destined to be a smooth stream^ 
in which she would sail safely with the current; 
she had no passions, no feelings to hurry her out 
of it: but for Agnes, it was far different; with 
every accession of knowledge came a new sensa- 
tion ; every hour gave indications of a heart that 
would be the victim of circumstance, and every 
event of life had some influence upon her cha- 
racter. 

It was in vain that her mother wdshed to repress 
the ardor of her disposition. The ethereal spirit 
of existence was too strong within her ; she had 
imbibed too much of her mother’s disposition to be 
guided by the formal rules that influenced Amelia. 
Her heart required icing by the hand of experience 
and misfortune, ere it could determine to believe 
that friendship and feeling were too generally 
names which engendered nothing but disappoint- 
ment. 

The necessary routine of London life, and such 
a London life as Mr. Fleming thought proper to 
lead, inevitably separated Mrs. Fleming from her 
children more than she wished. Still every mo- 
ment she could steal from etiquette and fashion 
was devoted to them — or rather to Agnes, whose 
heart she attempted to school, but in vain, into 
some of those rules which by repressing its ardency 
might fence it against future disappointment. 

About this period, there was a great deal of po- 
litical discussion on the subject of the India pos- 
sessions. Great extension of empire in that quar- 
ter of the world had been obtained by the British 
arms: — there were great outcries against the mo- 
nopolies, the persecutions, the peculations, and the 
corruptions, which must always exist in large 
governments so far removed from the seat of the 
mother-country. 

Mr. Fleming being a large proprietor of India 
stock, as well as a staunch supporter of the mea- 
sures of government, was of course deeply inte- 
rested in the question* and not only voted both in 
Leadenhall street and St. Stephen’s, but filled his 
house by political dinners, given with a view to its 
discussion, and of course frequented the houses 
of those who were of the same party with him- 
self. 

At this period when a great quantity of evidence 
was collecting from all quarters, there arrived 
from India a celebrated judge, who had gone out 
very early in life as a barrister: and who, by dint 
of talent, perseverance, and integrity, had so won 
his way to opulence and fame*, that in process of 
time he had been made a judge, and for some poli- 
tical service rewarded by the title of Baron Wal- 
mar — an unusual compliment to a judge in India. 

He had exercised his judicial capacity in the east 
now some years; and had devoted much of his 
time and influence to the amelioration and correc- 
tion of the corruptions of the government, and in 
repressing the eagerness of commercial speculation, 
which, at the same time that it could only be grati- 
fied by injustice, he foresaw must in time lead rather 
to the weakening than to the strengthening of our 
empire in that part of the world. 

In the midst of his legal avocations, he had 
made himself entirely master of a subject which he 
was known to have investigated deeply : and now 
that ill health and a large fortune induced him to 


THE ROUfi. 


19. 


resign his high official situation, and return to seek 
lepose in his own country, his decisions upon the 
subject were looked up to with anxiety by all par- 
ties. 

An eye witness of the acts of government, an 
acquaintance with the manners, the customs, the 
rights, the laws, and the inhabitants of the countries 
in which he had so long been a sojourner, gave the 
stamp of truth, and claimed attention to any judg- 
ment which he had formed. 

No wonder, then, at the board of India proprie- 
tors, by whom he was visited and invited, that 
ministerial and opposition members, interested in 
the question, courted him in all directions, or that 
Baron Walmer should be considered a powerful 
coadjutor to whichever party he should embrace. 

But Baron Walmer was a man of no party. He 
viewed the great question abstractedly, as it bore 
upon the first principles of humanity and jus- 
tice. 

His known sense of justice created the respect, 
and his resplendent talents commanded the admi- 
ration of all parties. So that in all the society 
in which any discussion of India affairs was inter- 
esting — and this was very much so at Mr. Flem- 
ing’s — the question of what Baron Walmer would 
say was always a matter of speculation and 
anxiety. 

Little accustomed to feel any interest in the 
question, Mrs. Fleming, to please her husband, 
submitted to a great deal of society that was far 
from agreeable, which this subject introduced to 
her house ; and Mr. Fleming told her it was his 
intention to get introduced to Baron Walmer the 
first opportunity, that he might be added to their 
oriental coi tries. 

At length cards were received for a dinner at 
81r Frederick Rupee’s, in Portland Place, cele- 
brated for its India discussions, mulligatawny and 
Madeira, and Mr. Fleming was delighted at receiv- 
ing a hint that Baron Walmer had agreed to join 
the party. 

Although from the high characte Lr philanthro- 
py and talent which the world had bestowed upon 
Walmer, Mrs. Fleming felt much interest in his 
name, yet she would have declined the invitation. 
But Mr. Fleming was too well aware of her powers 
of conversation, and of the charms of her society, 
to go unassisted, with such a powerful addition to 
the temptation which he intended to hold out to 
the Baron to visit Grosvenor Square, as his wife’s 
manner presented. 

In the habit of pleasing him, she stifled the 
effects of increased indisposition, and repressed the 
melancholy thoughts which latterly had been 
almost her constant companions of the hours devoted 
to society, as well as those devoted to rest and 
silence. 

In spite of her utmost efforts, her imagination 
would recur to the earlier scenes of her youthful 
days ; and call up in vivid colors all that she had 
then felt, and all that she had since suffered. 

She anticipated a speedy conclusion to all ; and 
she was already passing her hours in that kind of 
dreamy existence, which made her frequently for- 
get and neglect the realities of life. 

In short, her physical powers were unable to 
cope much longer with her mental struggles ; and 
she found herself giving way to that kind of mor- 


bid sensibility which a long series of unrequited 
feeling is almost always certain to produce in the 
human heart. The day for the dinner came ; and 
Mr. Fleming, in his eager anticipation of an intro- 
duction to Lord Walmer, exhibited an unusual 
degree of animation ; and having intimated to his 
lady his wishes that every thing should be done to 
further an acquaintance with the Baron, retired to 
make his toilet. 

Mrs. Fleming, more than usually melancholy, 
kept her daughters in her dressing-room till the 
last moment, and tried to be diverted by the 
sprightly sallies of Agnes, as she admired the 
ornaments with which Mr. Fleming’s vanity had 
filled her dressing-case. 

When the carriage was announced, she bad 
some difficulty in separating herself from their em- 
braces, and sighed that she could not devote the 
whole evening to their caresses. 

On arriving in Portland place, the principal part 
of the company had assembled, and were as usual 
dispersed in unconnected groups through the 
drawing-room, conversing on different subjects, and 
killing that abominable quarter of an hour, which 
is in many houses now extended to three quarters, 
before dinner. 

The ladies were discussing dresses, and the 
gentlemen politics; but all were in some degree 
anxious for the arrival of Lord Walmer. 

To the India proprietors he was a hero; and 
the men were accordingly anticipating, in various 
ways, his sentiments on the subject connected with 
their interests. 

The ladies, however, had different opinions. 

Well, I am sure !” cried one belle from amidst a 
group of young ladies, who seemed rather impa- 
tient at a delay which prevented exclusive con- 
versation with some favored swain, who was to 
give, them his arm to the dinner-room, — ‘‘Well! 
I’m sure, I’m not so mighty anxious about an old 
judge.” 

“ Oh ! but Lord Walmer is not so old.” 

“ Aye ! but then he is as sensible, and that is 
as bad, and talks about nothing but India, and 
pagodas, and Brama, and Bombay ; and I hear so 
much about it all at home, that I declare I am 
quite tired of the subject. Besides, I like nobody 
who is not romantic; and nothing that comes 
from India can be romantic. Calcutta is certainly 
the very antipodes to the enchanting regions of 
romance.” 

“ Oh ! — But what think you of an Indian 
chief] — or a Brahmin — or a beautiful widowed 
bride, sacrificing herself on the funeral pile of a 
beloved husband 1” — asked a young lady with 
blue eyes, just come out. 

“ Oh ! that,” returned the other, “ is quite de- 
lightful; one might make something of a romance 
out of such persons and incidents as those ; — but 
then the India Company is quite a different 
thing — they try to stop these romantic sacrifices — 
to extirpate the Brahmins, and to kill the Indian 
chiefs; op, what is quite as bad, to make them 
wear coats and troisitmes, which must spoil their 
figures. — But then Pa and the yellow people who 
dine in Harley Street never mention these ro- 
mantic things ; but talk about the price of tea, and 
the duty on shawls and bandanas: — oh ! ’tis quite 
horrid.” 


20 


THE R0U£. 


“ Oh, yes, quite horrid ! and then Leadenhal 
Street — what can be interesting connected with 
Leadenhall Street]” 

“ Not half so interesting, or delightful, certainly, 
as the idea of a fellow creature enduring the agonies 
of death in its most horrid shape, through an 
absurd superstition,’’ uttered a grave voice. 

“ There now, you are always so satirical. Miss 
Musters. To be sure, I did not think of their agonies, 
which, I dare say, as you say, must be very great, 
considering they are burnt alive. But yet it is a 
very romantic idea ; and shows great devotion to 
their husbands, and all that. Only think, now, 
a beautiful creature casting her eyes up to heaven — 
then down on the corpse of her deceased love — 
then mounting the pile, she wraps a bandana shawl 
gracefully round her beautiful form, and resigns 
herself to the devouring flames !” 

“ Oh dear !” exclaimed the blue eyed young 
lady, — “ I should think the fire would render a 
shawl unnecessary ; and China crape hangs quite 
as gracefully. 

“ Oh, certainly, certainly, — quite as gracefully — 
and it would be a pity to burn a beautiful India 
shawl — they cost so much. But where can this 
judge, this Lord Walrner be? I suppose dinner 
won’t be announced till he comes.” 

should think not. His presence is anxiously 
expected; and I assure you, in spite of your preju- 
dice against those who come from India, you will 
find him a very interesting person,” said Miss 
Musters. 

“What! isn’t he yellow? and hasn’t he got a 
liver complaint ?” 

“ No, he is very pale ; and his wan looks depict 
a disease of the mind, more than of the body.” 

“ Bless me ! how interesting ! a disease of the 
heart, instead of the liver ! I quite long to see him. 
Have you any idea of what the mental disease is? 
was he ever in love 1 perhaps disappointed in some 
early passion.” 

“ Whatever it might have been, he has not been 
selfish enough to sutler it to interfere with his duty 
towards his fellow creatures. He has devoted a 
series of years to the amelioration of the state of 
the native Indians, and to the correction of the 
abuses made in that country.” 

“Oh, he has] Well, that is very good I must 
say” drawled out the young lady, half yawning, 
and turning with some frivolous remark to her 
young companions. 

This conversation had occurred in the hearing 
of Mrs. Fleming, and she had become unconscious- 
ly interested in the person who formed the princi- 
pal subject of it. A wish arose in her heart to see 
this Baron Walrner. At this moment she heard 
his name called out by the servant in the front 
drawing room, and it was immediately succeeded 
by that bustle and subsequent silence which al- 
ways follows the arrival of a distinguished visiter. 

[Dinner was announced so immediately after the 
arrival of the Baron, that no introduction could 
possibly take place ; and the party was so nume- 
rous, and Mrs. Fleming, who never thought of 
precedence and etiquette, when left to herself, -went 
down stairs so much in the rear, that shemever 
even caught a glimpse of his person. 

The bustle attendant upon seating the party, and 
a recurrence to her own feelings, had banished the 


temporary curiosity which the previous conversa- 
tion had excited, and she took her place without a 
glance in the direction of the upper end of the 
table, where she might naturally suppose the Baron 
to be seated. 

All the common places of the dinner-table im- 
mediately commenced ; wines were enumerated 
and handed — course succeeded course ; and the 
confusion having a little subsided conversation 
began to be more distinctly understood. 

At this moment a question of considerable im- 
portance to the subject which was occupying the 
minds of most of the gentlemen at table, was put 
by the person who had handed Mrs. Fleming down 
to dinner, and who of course sat next to her. 

The host immediately requested Baron Walrner 
to reply and to give his opinion upon a matter, of 
which no one could judge as well as himself. 

Mrs. Fleming was at this moment engaged in 
taking wine ; and being in the act of bowing in 
an opposite direction, was prevented turning to- 
wards the speaker, to hear whom, every body was 
hushed to silence. 

The Baron spoke — Mrs. Fleming started ; what 
did she hear ] The voice struck upon her ear — 
upon her heart : 

’twas like the stealing 

Of summer wind thro’ some wreathed shell ; 

• Each secret winding — each inmost feeling 
Of her whole soul echoed to its spell 1 

She moved suddenly round ; the Baron’s face was 
turned towards where she was seated ; their eyes 
met, and in an instant, Agustus Clifton and Agnes 
Doraton remembered and recognised each other. 

The last time she had heard that voice was in 
the convulsive sob, at St. James’s church. The 
years that had passed since rolled away from her 
memory. It seemed as though the church, her mo- 
ther, her lover, were still present ; her head became 
dizzy ; she grasped the cloth with a slight shudder- 
ing convulsion ; the glass dropped from her trem- 
bling hand, and she sank insensible in her chair. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

How little do they know of true woman who 
speak lightly of a woman’s love ; and yet is it a 
fashion among poets, and novelists, and essayists, 
and philosophers, to compare female hearts and 
affections to any thing that is light, and volatile, 
and ephemeral in nature! 

Passion springs up in a man’s heart spontane- 
ously and quickly, like those flowers which we see 
by the way-side, where accident may have scatter- 
ed the seed in a light though fertile soil, and lying 
close to the surface, they blossom, and are blighted 
by the very sun which called them into existence. 
But in a woman’s heart they require to be sown 
with a careful hand, and cultivated with kindly at- 
tention ; but when once they have taken root, the 
fibres strike downwards ; and though the flowers 
may be blighted by after circumstances, or chilled 
bv coldness or unkindness, the roots are seldom 


THE ROUE. 


2X 


eradicated. Like the vase in which roses have 
once been distilled. 

You may break, you may ruin the vase, if yoii will. 

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 

It was thus with Mrs. Fleming. Her early 
love had been repressed by her principles, and her 
determination to conquer it had been aided by her 
high sense of daty and religion. Many were the 
struggles which she had with her rebellious heart 
and thoughts in the first years of her marriage. 
But time and active employment, the grand recipe, 
and, at length, a mother’s duties, gradually les- 
sened the influence and the memory of other days 
and other hopes; and to a common, or even to an 
observing eye, Clifton and all the circumstances of 
their short, though delicious intercourse, appeared 
forgotten. 

These feelings still remained at the bottom 
of her heart, deeply hidden, but still there, and 
added their influence, unperceived, to the other 
causes of the disease which was gradually wearing 
out her fragile frame, and sinking her to the 
grave: like the silent and secret working poison 
of Tophania, whose use was so common once in 
Italy, though its progress was imperceptible, its 
effect was not less fatal. 

The generosity of Clifton, by never again ap- 
pearing before her, saved her many a pang, and 
Hiaterially assisted her in the struggle. 

Sometimes, amidst the numerous crowded par- 
ties to which she was led, first as a bride, and 
afterwards as being a part of those duties which 
Mr. Fleming thought his wife ought to perform, a 
stray glance might bo hastily shot through the 
company in quest of an object which was not 
there, and a stray thought would sometimes won- 
der what had become of him. Perhaps the glance 
and the thought might create an involuntary feel- 
ing of disappointment ; but her good sense ac- 
knowledged that it was better they should not 
meet; and she knew Clifton well enough to be 
certain that it was her he considered in thus with- 
drawing himself for a time from his usual haunts. 

Too conscious to make any inquiries, she was 
ignorant that he had quitted his country ; ignorant 
that having lost her he considered that he had lost 
every thing, and had withdrawn himself not only 
from the society in which he had lived, but from 
his native soil, to try his fortune, and seek a cure 
for a hopeless passion beneath other suns in distant 
climes. 

\ oung and inexperienced as it was, Clifton’s 
was no common mind; his heart had not been use 
by those intrigues into which the youth of the pre- 
sent day pluiige so early, and from which too 
many ot them unfortunately form their opinions 
of the whole femal# sex. 

He had loved with all the vigor of a young and 
first love. There was none of the namby-pamby 
sentimentality — none of that fritted feeling which 
so often characterises passion at his age ; it was 
pure, wholesome, manly love, founded on a tho- 
rough knowledge of the worth of the object; a 
love that promised to stand the test of years, and 
was not to be conquered even by disappointment. 

That kind of love which would have guided a 
woman through all the storms of life; that would 


have grappled with ill fortune for the sake of her 
protection, and have mastered her in the hopes of 
procuring independence for the object of his affec- 
tion. Clifton knew that he was loved ; he knew 
that it was through no fickleness that another had 
been wedded. — He was quite aware that her pas 
sion for him was as fixed and unchangeable as his 
own, and that nothing but maternal influence and 
a high sense of filial duty had made her relinquish 
him for another. , 

Clifton knew and felt all this ; and knew that 
the best thing for both of them was decided sepa- 
ration. Bereft as he was of its principal joy, he 
did not meanly and cowardly give up life : — he had 
lost its sweetness, but its vigor still remained un- 
impaired. He felt that stir within, which taught 
him he was not born for an idler on the face of the 
earth. His love was lost; but fame still remained 
a bright object in the perspective of existence ; and 
fame he determined to pursue — not as heretofore, 
through the flowry and seductive paths of poetry, 
but through the thorny labyrinth of his profession. 
Poetry, either to read or to write, at least when it 
is felt, softens and enervates the heart. Clifton 
felt it to be dangerous, and he avoided it altogether. 

India, at the time, presented a wide field for 
professional exertion — a mass of cases and actions 
had accumulated from the extension of territory, 
and from, commercial and territorial disputes of all 
kinds. The oriental vineyard presented a plentiful 
harvest, and there were but few laborers to divide 
the toil and the profits. 

With some little difficulty an appointment was 
procured ; and without the dangerous indulgence 
of seeing her even once again, Clifton quitted the 
object of his first love and of his dearest hopes, to 
struggle with his disappointed feelings, and to seek 
for power and fortune in a distant country. 

On his arrival, he found plenty of occupation in 
his professional capacity ; and the number of abuses 
which presented themselves for reformation, the 
number of injustices which it was in his power to 
remedy, ever gave him the best balm of a wounded 
mind — constant occupation. 

At the period of his arrival, there was a great 
opening for an independent and upright advocate 
— and this Clifton was: the consequence was, his 
employment by all parties, and the subsequent con- 
fidence of the administration which intrusted to 
his judgment many of the most important regula- 
tions for the government of the new provinces: in 
all of which, Clifton so managed as to beget con- 
fidence between the conquered and the con- 
querors. 

These employments rapidly led to a fortune and 
j a rank as highly honorable to himselt as it was to 
1 the government that employed him. 

At length a question of great political importance 
arising with regard to our possessions in the East, 
It became his duty, as possessing the best and most 
elaborate information on the subject, to come to 
England ; and though his heart ached at the neces- 
sity, yet Clifton was not a man who neglected even 
a painful duty for the gratification of his own pri- 
vate feelings. 

The banished and penny less Clifton, therefore, 
after a laps of fifteen years, returned to England 
the rich, the respected, and the talented Baroa 
W aimer. 

2 


22 


THE ROU:fi. 


The sight of his native country recalled all the 
circumst£.nces of his youth : — again the form of 
Agnes flitted before his eyes. But his feelings had 
too long been too well regulated to permit the 
slightest tinge of passion to characterise these re- 
collections. 


CHAPTER IX. 

Eyert thing had been prepared for the splen- 
did fete at Mr. Fleming’s, which he trusted was to 
identify him as the head of the party in Oriental 
politics. Nothing that his immense wealth could 
procure in the way of luxury and of costliness, 
had been omitted ; and all those who go into 
society with no other views than those of killing 
time, or seeking enterbainment, were looking for- 
ward with gay anticipations to the evening fixed 
for this splendid ball, which they were aware 
would be rendered one of the most brilliant of the 
season, by the taste of the hostess, and by the 
vanity of the host. 

Poor Mrs. Fleming, acting upon the habitual 
impulse of her life, that of repairing the involun- 
tary fault of not loving her husband, by the minu- 
test attention to his wishes, had herself given di- 
rections to the various artificers who had been em- 
ployed in the new furniture, and in the splendid 
temporary decorations which were everyw^here 
scattered about the apartments. These works were 
proceeding with the utmost rapidity even when 
their directress was brought into the house, after 
the death-blow had been given ; and as she was 
borne to the bed in which in so few hours she was 
to be a corpse, her fading eye fell upon nothing but 
ail these elegant trappings of vanity — these splen- 
did preparations for festivity. 

How changed the scene ! there were now no 
clattering of hammers, no officious bustling of ser- 
vants, hurrying to and fro with the appurtenances 
of a banquet — no busy upholsterer, with damask 
hangings and silk draperies; all these were stopped, 
and were succeeded by those silent ones which pre- 
pare the dead for their last habitation. 

Alas ! how little thought Mrs. Fleming the 
morning before, when she had expressed a fear that 
the flowers which were every where scattered 
through the apartments and verandahs, would not 
live through the heat of the atmosphere, on the 
night of her party, that she herself would be an 
earlier victim than they — that she herself would 
drop into the grave before the freshness of their 
transient blossoms had passed away. 

The blooming orange tree, the bright carnation, 
the crimson rose, seemed to rise in mockery at the 
frailer tenure by which mortality held its life and 
freshness. For they still shed their sweets, and 
spread their bright blossoms in the air, while the 
hand that had reared and cultivated them lay cold 
and senseless. 

All the servants moved about the house with 
noiseless tread ; and the formula of grief was 
strictly preserved. Gillow had received a carte 
hlancke to do every thing that was proper according 
to the rank of the deceased ; every thing was 


hushed and silent from the library in which Mr. 
Fleming and Lady Pomeroy sat in a kind of state 
grief, down to the steward’s room and servant’s 
hall. 

The customary suit of solemn black was ordered 
for all the household, and the silence was only 
disturbed by the mulfled knock which announced 
the numerous cards of condolence that poured in 
upon the widower and Lady Pomeroy. 

Such were the outward symptoms of “ funeral 
woe” for the departed Mrs. Fleming; yet, although 
she had been a most exemplary wife, a kind mis- 
tress, and a sincere friend, the only real distress 
evinced for her loss was exhibited in the nursery, 
where the little Agnes was literally overwhelmed 
with her grief. 

The floods of tears that rolled down her cheeks 
— her convulsed sobs — her utter incapacity to at- 
tend to any of the common consolations offered by 
her maid, or by the governess, who, under Mrs. 
Fleming’s direction superintended the studies of 
her children ; all showed that young as she was, 
she had still years sufficient to appreciate the loss 
of a mother — a mother who had been her resource 
in all her little difficulties; upon whose bosom she 
had a thousand limes been hushed to repose, when 
chidden by her father and Lady Pomeroy. 

Poor Agnes ! great as was her childish grief, 
as great as her little heart was capable of experi- 
encing, yet how little could her infant mind appre- 
ciate the measure and extent of her loss, or its 
influence on all her future life ! 

Amelia suffered too, but she suffered in charac- 
ter ; a few silent tears stole down her quiet cheeks ; 
but she seemed to feel the argument of the maid, 
that too much weeping would make her eyes red, 
and she therefore checked her tears, but kept up a 
silence appropriate to the melancholy circumstance, 
and responded sigh for sigh with Lady Pomeroy 
on her occasional visit to their room. 

This lady almost chid Agnes for the violence of 
her grief; but finding that she only rendered it 
still more violent, she retired, lest the sight of her 
tears and sound of her sobs should discompose her 
nerves, and render her incapable of administering 
consolation to her brother; her own was derived 
from receiving cards of condolence, and giving all 
the necessary orders for the funeral, which Mr. 
Fleming determined should be as splendid as tho 
rank of her ancestors and his own wealth author- 
ised. 

It was some consolation to him, also, to read 
paragraphs in the various papers in which his de- 
ceased wife’s progenitors were named. 

The leading foible of his soul was gratified, in 
spite of his loss, by reading that — “ On this morn- 
ing early, the much admired and universally re- 
spected Mrs. Fleming, died suddenly at the family 
mansion in Grosvenor Square Her death is uni- 
versally regretted by the world of fashion, in whose 
hemisphere she shone one of the most brilliant 
stars. Mrs. Fleming was grand-daughter of the 

Marquis of T , by the mother’s side, and of the 

Earl of D , by the father’s. She w'as first 

cousin to the late Duke of B , and niece to the 

Countess of T , the Marchioness of VV , 

and the Dowager Duchess of B ; and was 

connected by blood or by marriage with most of 
the noble families in the country. The immeiiiale 


THE ROUE. 


23 


cause of her death was the bursting of a blood ves- 
sel, in consequence of a fit of coughing after the 
solendid banquet given yesterday by Sir Frederick 
Kupee. Mr. Fleming and family are inconsolable.” 

This was the account which gratified Mr. 
Fleming in the columns of the Morning Post, and 
other polite papers, all of which attributed her death 
to the same circumstance — the bursting of a blood 
vessel ; it was, indeed, the bursting of the greatest — 
the heart ! 

But who could image that the gay, the envied, 
the rich Mrs. Fleming, with every luxury at com- 
mand, one of the leaders of fashion, one moving in 
the gayest circles of the metropolis, rolling over the 
streets in splendid equipages, and basking in the 
sunshine of prosperity, could die of a broken heart] 
and yet it was true ! 

A broken heart is not one of the acknowledged 
diseases of our nature ; it is never mentioned in 
the annual bills of mortality, and yet it is a much 
more common cause of death than we are aware 

of. 

How many neglected parents and wives — how 
many struggling through disappointment after dis- 
appointment, and hope blighted after hope, till 
nothing remains desirable in life, thus yield it up 
with a broken heart, while their death is attributed 
to consumption, or some of the legitimate and ad- 
mitted causes of death. 

The routine of Mr. Fleming’s family went on as 
usual ; dinners were served in the dining-room, stew- 
ard’s room and servant’s hall ; for the great ma- 
chine of life must go on in its accustomed course. 
No mortality short of a general plague arrests its 
customary progress. 

The event was not yet so generally known, but 
that there came several tickets for balls, and cards 
for dinners, to the deceased. 

At night the inmates of the house retired early : 
there was a melancholy cessation from their usually 
dissipated hours. 

A person was appointed to sit up in the next 
room with the corpse ; and she as well as the rest 
of the household were soon buried in sleep. 

All slept but Agnes ; she still sobbed and could 
not compose her grief: she however was put to 
bed, and buried her little face and weeping eyes in 
the pillow, still calling upon her mamma. 

Unable to sleep, she sat up, an-d finding that her 
sister and their maid slept soundly, she stole out of 
bed, and creeping along the private passage which 
communicated with her mother’s apartment, through* 
which Mrs. Fleming always visited her children 
night and morning, and derived in their society the 
principal consolation of her life, she entered the 
chamber of death. 

The sight of the pallid corpse as it reposed on 
the bed merely covered with a sheet — the marble 
arms extended — and the placid face, looking much 
more tranquil than it was wont to look in life ; the 
tapers that burnt at the foot of fne couch — the 
black trappings which were hung around, occasioned 
a fresh burst of grief from the agonized heart of the 
poor girl, and throwing herself on the bed, she 
clasped the corpse in her arms, and gave way to 
the bitterness of her agony. The grief of child- 
hood, however, is not like that of maturer years. 
The agony which can give way to tears is much 
sooner relieved than that dry, concentrated grief of 


the heart which finds no vent but in the sighs that 
threaten to break it. So Agnes soon sobbed her- 
self to sleep on that cold bosom of her dead parent, 
from which she had first drawn the warm stream 
of her own existence, and on which so many of 
her infant troubles hiul been hushed to repose. 

How long she had slept. Agnes was insensible ; 
but on awaking, she perceived with terror, a tall 
figure, dressed in black, bending over the couch of 
death; his look was benign, however, though 
solemn, and the warm tear of manly grief stood in 
his e3’^e, as he hushed her to silence, and still gazed 
intently on the corpse. 

His cloak was thrown back ; the light of the 
tapers shone on his pale features, w'hose manly 
beauty had not been displaced, but merely changed 
in character by his grief; his uplifted hands were 
clasped, and his lip seemed to move in silent 
prayers either for the grief of the living or for the 
fate of the departed. 

Agnes would have screamed, buj the touching 
solemnity of his countenance, the evident participa- 
tion of her grief, and the pitying kindness of his 
look, took -from her all fear, and she raised up her 
rosy, healthy cheek, still wet with her tears, from 
the pale breast upon which it had been pillowed, 
and with which it formed the perfect contrast of the 
living and dead ; and gazed on the stranger with 
wonder, not unmixed with awe. 

As the tears rolled down the stranger’s pale face, 
her own downed afresh ; and she permitted him with- 
out shrinking, to take her from the corpse of her 
mother, to peruse her countenance, and to utter a 
solemn benediction over her, while he made an 
audible vow never to forsake the child of a mother 
who had been so dear to him. 

He pressed the child to his breast, imprinted one 
kiss on her forehead, placed her again upon the 
couch, cast one more mournful look and almost 
agonized glance upon the corpse, and quitted the 
apartment ; leaving the youthful Agnes almost un- 
certain whether she had seen a spirit or a human 
being. But she had gazed so intently upon the 
form and features of the stranger, that she felt she 
should never forget them. 

In the morning Agnes was found by the attend- 
ants asleep by the side of her mother’s corpse ; and 
her tale of the stranger was received by her chiding 
aunt and father as the effect of a dream, caused by 
the exciting circumstances under which she was 
placed. 

The house was now given up to the undertakers ; 
a leaden coffin cased in mahogany, and covered 
with crimson velvet, decorated with escutcheons, in 
which the arms furnished Mr. Fleming, by the flat- 
tery of the Herald’s Office, were blended v/ith 
the more ancient and honorable shield of the 
Dorntons. 

To ail these minutiae Mr. Flemiiig attended with 
peculiar care, as though he feared the gloomy ten- 
ants of the tomb might not be aware of the rank 
and pretensions of the deceased. 

Nothing was omitted that could bespeak these, 
and make them felt and acknowledged by all who 
witnessed the formulas of death. 

At length the mournful morning appointed for 
the funeral arrived, and was ushered in by the toll- 
ing of the bells in the vicinity — a noiseless bustle 
pervaded the mansion — carriages began to arrive 


24 


THE ROUE 


from all the fashionable quarters of the town, as 
empty as the grief of their owners for the deceased ; 
and Mr. Fleming felt gratified, as he witnessed 
from his drawing-room window the long line of 
coronetted vehicles which were in waiting to fill up 
the procession that was to convey his highly con- 
nected consort to the tomb ; for even in this solemn 
moment the ruling passion of his heart was 
paramount. 

At eleven o’clock the hearse with its six black 
steeds and nodding plumes, all blazoned with the 
family escutcheons, drew up at the door which had 
lately echoed to the thundering knock of the 
visitants to her who was now borne away from it 
forever 

On their arrival at the church, the pall was 
borne by four people of rank. Mr. Fleming walked 
as chief mourner ; the funeral service was per- 
formed by a bishop ; and nothing that could render 
the form impressive was omitted. 

Chittenden had outdone himself; and Mr. 
Fleming was satisfied, and paid the bill of the fu- 
neral expenses, as the last honors paid to his wife’s 
memory and his own pride. 

Amidst the pomp and ceremony on this mourn- 
ful occasion, there was one apart from the crowd, 
who groaned aloud during the ceremony, and who 
eagerly stretched forth his head to catch a last 
glimpse of the coffin as it descended by machinery 
into the vault. He was not an invited mourner ; 
neither did he come with the common herd of spec- 
tators. From the moment the church doors were 
open, he had taken his place in a retired spot, and 
had been observed by the pow-openers in earnest 
and constant prayer till the arrival of the funeral 
procession, when he had joined the mourners unob- 
served, and stood at no great distance from the cof- 
fin during the ceremony. 

The same stranger, by dint of a bribe to the 
sexton, obtained the sad privilege of spending nearly 
two hours during the subsequent night in the vault, 
where he was overheard to pray most earnestly, 
and to indulge in almost ungovernable grief. 

A carriage and four waited for him at the gates 
of the church yard, which bore from England — 
from his prospects, his duties, and his home, the 
Earon Walmer; whose heart was the only one 
impressed with feeling during the glittering and 
mournful forms of the funeral pageantry. 




CHAPTER X. 

The boarding school of Mrs. Dashington was 
Ihe most fashionable establishment in the metropo- 
fis, from which young ladies could derive those 
finishing touches in the education which the mas- 
ter artists give to their pictures before they send 
them to the exhibition. At this school Agnes 
had contracted a firm friendship for Lady Emily 
Trevor, 

Lady Emily united prudence with feeling; and 
with a Judgment more mature than her years, she 
attempted, and in some measure succeeded, in a 
regulation of her friends’ more ardent tempera- 
ment. 


Lady Emily was the sister of Charles Trevor 
who had danced with Agnes on an evening which 
still remained most vividly impressed upon her 
remembrance ; and her features bearing a slight 
resemblance to her brother’s, recalled all the re- 
collections of that evening, with their subsequent 
childish meetings on the sea shore, with sensations 
a little more allied to the feelings of the woman., 
^ than they were when those half stolen interviews 
were enjoyed at Brighton. 

Lady Emily, too, wished nothing more than to 
make a sister of her friend, and lost no opportu- 
nity of speaking well of Charles, whom she loved 
with all the fondness of a sister’s love ; and who 
that has ever had a sister, does not know how 
strong that love is, and how often a sisterly affec- 
tion renders a woman blind to a brother’s fail- 
ings 1 

This circumstance begot a confidence between 
these two young ladies, which led to a close inti- 
macy. Agnes loved the Lady Emily for her kind- 
ness, her goodness of disposition, and perhaps for 
her likeness to her brother ; but she thought her 
friend’s mind a little too common -place — a little too 
given to tread in the beaten track which others 
had trod before, and too apt to regulate her feel- 
ings by her head, instead of permitting her ac- 
tions and emotions to be dictated entirely by her 
heart. 

Lady Emily loved Agnes for the generosity of 
her disposition. She loved her even for her romance, 
though she saw its dangerous tendency ; and she 
admired the vigor of her intellect, and the richness 
of her imagination. But she did the utmost in 
her yjower to curb those ebulitions of her feelings 
which were ever bursting out into violent emotions 
of indignation at oppression, or of unqualified admi- 
ration at efforts of intellect or generosity. 

She saw all the sterling good qualities of her 
heart, the almost stern uprightness of her mind, in 
spite of all the softness engendered by her course 
of reading, and in spite of all the excuses which 
her generous kindness coiild find for the dereliction 
of others. 

She felt that such a woman would make an in- 
valuable wife for her darling brother, and trusted 
that such qualities would fix for ever the wavering 
mind of Charles Trevor. Agnes’ own recollection 
of her former intercourse, her romantic ideas of 
first love, and early impressions, rendered her 
secretly almost as anxious for this event as her 
friend ; and the image of Trevor, thus kept alive 
in her mind, no wonder that, when time and 
chance threw him in her way, her heart was just 
in the state to deceive itself, and to receive the 
impression which the ardent impetuosity of a 
young man’s passion was calculated to inspire. 

During this period Trevor was abroad ; and 
though he was not a very constant correspondent, 
yet, as the few letters that Lady Emily received 
from him gave lively descriptions of the places he 
had passed through, and were plentifully che- 
quered with “ blue skies of Italy,” the “ banks 
of the Arno,” and the “ sublime of the Alps and 
the Appenines,” they impressed them both with 
the idea that he was a man of taste and feeling ; 
and those descriptions were well calculated to 
keep alive the romance which had been already 
woven in the imagination of Agnes. 


THE ROUE. 


25 


CHAPTER XL 

Br this time we little doubt but many of our 
readers are turning over every chapter in double 
quick time,” as the military say, hoping to find 
out the Roue, It is, however, the province of the 
skilful dramatist to keep back its principal charac- 
ter till the second, and sometimes the third act; 
nay, in some instances, we have known him intro- 
duced only just in time for the denouement, and 
indeed that is the principal part of the work, 
whether novel or play, in which he is neces- 
sary. 

The subordinate characters may keep up, pro- . 
long, and perhaps attenuate the interest, which the 
hero arrives in time to complete. Besides, there 
is, perhaps, some art in thus keeping back the 
character whose life we profess to write. — Mystery, 
we all know, excites an interest, which its removal 
frequently destroys. The interest of Mokanna is 
kept alive only so long as his veil is unlified : the 
revelation of his countenance makes him a com- 
mon hero ; and a common hero, at least a modern 
hero, is a mere nobody — a mere coat and breeches 
part, as it is phrased in the technicals of the green- 
room. There is likewise a difficulty in our hero 
which is uncommon — the difficulty of creating a 
Roue bad enough to make him interesting, without 
rendering him so bad as to frustrate such. an inten- 
tion ; though this difficulty is in the present in- 
stance somewhat obviated by our hero’s having 
made himself to our hands; and we send the per- 
sonage to the world, just as nature, education, and 
habit have formed him. Perhaps we ought not to 
enumerate nature as having any hand in the forma- 
tion of his character. 

Our only duty is to give him a fair chance in 
his debut. Denied the flourish of trumpets which 
precedes and gives dignity to the entrance of a 
dramatic hero; or the privilege of making him sing 
a song behind the scenes, to create a favorable 
impression in favor of his voice, and music in the 
audience ; the novel is reduced to the necessity of 
a mere verbaLdescription. 

Had he been a veritable Don Juan, we might 
heve given him the advantage of a trap-door, and 
a handful of flames. But as he is neither more 
nor less than one of those wild spirits who are to 
be found every where spending a princely fortune, 
and mispending time, with considerable talents in 
the pursuit of any pleasure that presents itself, 
travelling'out of the beaten track in quest of new 
sensations, and rushing into every thing that gave 

Hope of a pleasure, or peril of a grave ; 

why we must content ourselves with the introduc- 
tion which one of his own mad acts gave him to the 
notice of society. An act which was conveyed to 
the public through the following mysterious para- 
graphs through the morning and evening papers, — 
paragraphs which about this period excited a great 
deal of surprise and scandal in the fashionable 
world ; and a great deal of speculation in that por- 
tion of the world which could not claim this envi- 
able distinction: 

PARAGRAPH I. 

•‘The circles of haut-ton are much occupied 


just now with a discovery which implicates a young 
and lovely countess with a certain notorious, dash- 
ing, and elegant baronet.” 

PARAGRAPH II. 

“ The parties alluded to in our columns of yes- 
terday, are supposed to be the young and lovely 

Countess of M and Sir R L e. 

The lady was married only three years since to her 
present lord, who is the head of one of the most 
ancient families in the kingdom. The gallant Ba- 
ronet has distinguished himself as much in the 
field of Mars as in the bowers of Venus; and it is 
whispered that this is the third time that he has 
given some hopes of a profitable cause to the 
gentlemen of the long-robe.” 

PARAGRAPH III. 

‘‘ Faux pas in fashionable life . — The names of 
the frail fair one and of her gallant paramour are 
in every body’s mouth in certain circles ; but until 
the publicity of the law shall make them known, 
our readers must pardon us for a concealment 
which delicacy renders necessary. It is said that 
the estrangement of the lady from her husband for 
the last few months had given rise to jealousy, 
whose vigilance was at length rewarded, if a hus- 
band can call it reward, with the full conviction 
that it was well founded. The lady, conscious of 
this, contrived to escape through the garden of the 

family-mansion in Square, where she was 

met by the gallant Baronet and a faithful friend, 
and conveyed to a place of concealment and se- 
curity. There are various opinions afloat upon this 
interesting topic in the fashionable world. Some 
blame the nobleman for marrying a lady so much 
younger than himself. Others think he paved the 
way to his own dishonour by the admission of 
such a fascinating and notorious gallant to such 
close and continued intimacy. As to the frail 
heroine of the adventure, she is blamed, and pitied 
according to the feelings and characters of those 
engaged in the disquisition.” 

PARAGRAPH IV. 

“ Further particulars . — Many of the circum- 
stances connected with the late faux pas are of 
such a nature, as to throw a particular interest over 
the whole affair. The youth and beauty of the 
guilty pair — the violence of their passion — the con- 
trivance of their stolen pleasures — their hair-breadth 
escapes — their moonlight interviews — together with 
the sworn gallantry and acknowledged bravery of 
the gay Lothario, have given to the whole affair 
a tincture of romance, which has rendered it the 
most interesting occurrence of the kind that has 
happened for half a century. 

“It is said that certain gentlemen of the long- 
robe are already retained ; that Mr. B. has, in con- 
versation, expressed some portion of the bitter sar- 
casm for which he is famed, and with wffiich he 
hopes to induce the jury to mitigate the damages* 

while Mr, C. P is dressing up a most affecting 

account of the domestic felicity which has been 
violated by the spoiler, and of the virtue that has 
become the prey of the destroyer.” 

These were the paragraphs that drew every 
female eye to that corner of the paper set apart for 
intelligences of this nature : and greedily were they 
read and commented upon by the young ladies of 


26 


THE ROUfi. 




Mrs. Dashington’s establishment: who felt a pecu- 
liar interest in all they understood of the affair, 
from the circumstance of the “ fallen fair one” 
having been a pupil of their “ University and 
one of those whose rank and influence were the 
pride and glory of Mrs. Dashington. 

That lady lifted up her hands and eyes with as- 
tonishment at this lapse of prudence, as she called 
it, in a pupil of hers; and wondered that only 
a three years intercourse with the world should 
have produced such a change in her mind and 
morals as to have occasioned such a dereliction 
from duty and propriety — as to be found out, 
A few days afterwards, the following fiistoriette 
gave additional interest to the affair ; 

PARAGRAPH Y. 

Duel in high life. — A meeting took place yes- 
terday morning, in the neighborhood of Hounslow, 

between Sir R L e, the hero of the late 

crim. con. affair, and the gallant and honorable 

Colonel F , the brother of the Lady : the 

former was attended by the honorable F- 

V , and the gallant Colonel by a brother offi- 

cer. The parties arrived on the ground about 
seven in the morning in two hired chaises, which 
were stationed in a by-lane leading to Cranford ; 
it being an affair in which the interference of 
seconds could be of no avail, none was attempted. 
The Colonel saluted his antagonist when they 
met, with that froide poliiesse which distinguishes 
the salutation of a determined enemy: the gay 
Lothario returned it with a bow and a smile, and 
with a look of nonchalance and bravery that would 
have graced a better cause. The ground was 
measured — and the pistols loaded by the seconds 
in solemn silence. Each second then brought his 

principal to his station : when Sir R L— — 

observing that his antagonist was placed in a 
direct line between himself and an oak tree, by 
W’hich he was made a much more conspicuous 
mark, immediately pointed out the circumstance 
to the Colonel’s second, who perceiving his error, 
and the advantage it gave the Baronet, imme- 
diately made a different arrangement, expressing 
his thanks for the hint. 

“ x\t the signal given for firing, the gallant 
Colonel’s pistol was discharged to the instant ; 
and so well had it been directed, that the ball 
passed through the tie of his adversary’s neckcloth, 
who, to the surprise of all parties, had not even 
raised his pistol from his side, 

“ Turning immediately to his second. Sir R 

L desired him to ascertain if th« Colonel was 

satisfied. Being answered in the negative, and 
requested to take his fire, the Baronet himself again 
put the question ; and on again receiving a negative 
he deliberately turned round, and firing in an op- 
posite direction at a tree nearly three times the 
distance from him that the Colonel was, lodged his 
ball directly in the centre of the trunk : then re- 
suming his position, he signified to his friend that 
he was ready to take the second shot, as, by his 
not firing in the air, no termination had been put 
to the contest. The seconds here declared it impos- 
sible to proceed under such circumstances, and that 
the Colonel had done sufficient to satisfy his honor 
— in which he was compelled reluctantly to agree ; 
and the parties returned to town. 


M’’e understand that the moment the affair w^aa 
settled, the gallant Baronet took off his neckcloth, 
and showed his friend and the surgeon who had 
attended near the ground, that the ball had actually 
grazed his throat, and that his shirt-collar was 
nearly saturated with blood.” 

This account was given as an authorized history 
of the affair in all the morning papers, and it w as 
astonishing how the gallant bearing and generosity, 

as it was termed, of Sir R L , turned the 

tide of public conversation and opinion in favor ©f 
the seducer. 

Bravery and generosity are qualities which make 
more way wdth women, than perseverance and 
virtue ; or even than what is called honor, w'here it 
is not emblazoned with these accompaniments. His 
conduct on this occasion, conferred on the hero of 
the adventure a character that gave him a danger- 
ous interest in the eyes of the young and inex- 
perienced ; and his fault was forgotten in the minds 
of many, in the contemplation of the romantic 
manner in which it had been perpetrated, and the 
dashing and daring gallantry with which its conse- 
quences had been braved. 

A few, but those w’ere not among the young, 
the thoughtless, and the gay, looked upon the non- 
chalance with which he had conducted himself in 
the field, only as an aggravation of his error; and 
considered him as standing there ready to rush into 
the presence of his Maker, in the very act of de- 
fending the violation of one of his most sacred 
commandments. 

As usual, upon such occasions, in this very just 
world of ours, the lips of censure were much more 
opened against the offending female than against 
her seducer. By her own sex in particular, she 
was treated most unsparingly ; nothing was re- 
membered of her but her frailty; and they all vitu- 
perated her dereliction from virtue, without men- 
tioning one alleviating circumstance in her favor. 
In recapitulating her crime, they forgot that its 
foundation was laid in the sacrifice which had been 
made of her youth and beaiity at the shrine of in- 
terest and ambition : they forgot that her husband 
was three times her age, and, if the world spoke 
truth, with vices equal to his years ; and they found 
no apology for her, in the remembrance that her 
seducer was a practised corrupter of the sex — de- 
voting the whole powers of a well-educated mind, 
a peculiarly graceful person, and a well-earned cha- 
racter for bravery, to that pursuit which had attain- 
ned for him the title of Vhomme a bonnes fortunes, 
which being translated, means simply, “ a sucessful 
scoundrel.” But the French have very pretty 
terms and phrases for all sorts of crimes. 

There had, however, been some circumstances 
connected with this bonne fortune of our hero’s, 
which rendered it rather a more flagrant breach of 
trust, and a greater violation of hospitality and of 
friendship, than ever our latitudinarian world of 
fashion could patronise; and for a wonder, thoughts 
were really entertained of excluding the gentleman 
as well as the lady from society, at least for a time. 
This idea was much patronised by the many of 
his own sex, who envied him for the superiority 
of his mind and person, and for the sway which he 
had long held in the high circles in which he 
moved ; for he had long been the “ glass of fashion 
in which every one dressed himself;” and long 


THE ROUE. 


27 


given laws to the forms of hats, the cut of panta- 
loons, and the ties of cravats; a distinction which, 
to do him justice, he only enjoyed as it enabled 
him to make fools of the many, while, with his 
select few, he laughed at their folly. Well would 
it have been for some of his coterie, had these 
been the only things in which they had imitated 
him. 

Circumstances, however, soon rendered the adop- 
tion of this measure of exclusion unnecessary, as 
he withdrew himself to the continent, till the affair 
should be blown over; an event which w' as an- 
nounced in the Kentish Chronicle, dated Dover: 
and, till his reappearance upon the tapis of our 
history, where he is not at present necessary, we 
must be contented with these slight notices of the 
movements of our intended hero; for such is Sir 
R L . 

PARAGRAPH VI. 

On Thursday morning last, the gallant Baro- 
net, who has lately made himself so conspicuous in 
the beau monde, by his elopement with a certain 
celebrated Countess, arrived here in company with 
his frail companion, and the friend who was his se- 
cond in the field. A private packet was imme- 
diately hired, in which the whole party set sail for 
the continent, where it is rumored that they intend 
to travel for some few months, until the legal and 
other processes consequent on the elopement are 
arranged.” 

This w'as the last paragraph upon an affair w’^hich 
proved one of the nine days’ wonders of the fashion- 
able world at that period. 

But it was rather a curious sight to see the 
eight or ten young ladies of Mrs. Dashington’s 
establishment eagerly waiting for the morning pa- 
papers, and still more eagerly prying into them for 
all the information which was to be obtained upon 
this subject. It was curious too, to hear their dis- 
quisitions and opinions upon these paragraphs; and 
it wmuld have been still more so to have known all 
their thoughts, and wishes, and feelings, to which 
their perusal and contemplation of this adventure 
had given rise. 

Such details of such a circumstance were curious 
subjects fo.r the study and contemplation of young 
and inexperienced female minds, just entering into 
life ; and yet we are compelled to admit, that the 
new'spapers which contained them were much more 
sought after, and read in the “ finishing school,” 
for the first four days after this affair, than any 
of the books which usually occupied their reading 
hours 

Amelia read it as a matter of course; she uttered 
the word “ Shocking,” cast up her eyes, and there 
was an end of the matter. 

Agnes, one year younger in years, but five years 
older than her sister in feeling, read the accounts, 
and listened to all the observations to which they 
had given rise, with a mixed feeling of pity and 
horror, w'hich she could not however entirely divest 
of something like admiration at the intrepidity of 
the hero of the tale; in which a youthful mind is 
too apt to find excuses for derelictions of this 
nature. 


# 


CHAPTER XII. 

For some two or three years the sisters continued 
at Mrs. Dashington’s school, both becoming still 
more confirmed in all those habits of mind w’hich 
had characterised their infancy — the one conform- 
ing to all the ceremonies of her education, and thus 
becoming gradually a creature of mere form; the 
other, drinking with avidity from all the streams 
of literature and poetry, which the miscellaneous 
and itinerate library of Mrs. Dashington’s drawing 
room provided, and by these means feeding rather 
than restraining and regulating the high and inde- 
pendent passions of her nature ; but with all these 
warm and impetuous feelings of the heart were 
mingled a nobleness of spirit and a generosity of 
mind, which rendered her admired and beloved by 
every body. Her heart was perpetually in her 
hand and on her lips; what the one dictated, was 
the impulse to the actions and words of the other. 
Her allowance was entirely expended in indiscrimi 
nate charity, so that her wardrobe suffered dread- 
fully from this use, or misuse, as Mrs. Dashington 
called it, of her ample means. In short, all her 
actions were the result of impulse ; the sight of 
misery was enough to draw a tear from her eye, 
and relief from her purse. She stopped not to in- 
quire if the misery was real ; it was apparent, and 
that was sufficient. 

She drew all her knowledge of life from poetry, 
and creating an existence of her own, believed it to 
be the one through which she was to pass — but in 
spite of all this strong feeling, in spite of all her 
indiscriminate reading, there was a steady perse- 
verance in right in every thing she did ; and though 
she often acted without judgment, it was never 
without principle. But here was a being to be 
turned upon the great theatre of life. Here was a 
heart to go 'out among the heartless; and here 
were feelings and affections to become perhaps the 
prey of the male coquette, to be blighted by ingrati- 
tude, and to be chilled by the deceit which one 
meets with at every turning in the crooked paths of 
our existence. 

Into this world, however, it was now decreed 
that she was to enter ; due notices were given to 
Mrs. Dashington of the departures of the Misses 
Fleming; and Lady Emily Trevor was to quit at 
the same time. 

As nothing could be done without a presentation 
at court, at least in Lady Pomeroy’s ideas, this was 
the first thing thought of; and to her entire satis- 
faction, notices were just now issued from the 
chamberlain’s office, of an approaching drawing 
room. 

Her first presentation is an epoch of great im- 
portance in the life of a young lady. It gives her 
the first privilege of a woman, that of entering into 
dissipation. It is the signal that she is “ out,” 
and therefore ranked among those who are, for the 
future, open to receive cards for balls and proposals 
of marriage. 

A drawing room, had, of late years, been scarce ; 
it was no surprise that the present one had been 
waited for with impatience, and looked forward to 
with anxiety. 

For some weeks all the milliners and dress- 
makers, from Conduit street to South Audley 


THE ROUE 


2R 


Street, had been in full occupation. The needle 
of the poor dear little seamstresses, who slave away 
their youth and beauty in these nunneries of needle- 
W’orh, had been plied early and late, with no other 
reward than the contemplation of the finery which 
w’a? growing into shape under their ingenious 
fing-srs ; the plumassiers dressed up their feathers 
with all the pride of peacocks — mammas, govern- 
esses, chaperons, young ladies and ladies’ maids, 
were in a bustle from morning till night; the mil- 
liners’ doors were besieged ; every body thought to 
be first served, and every body thought themselves 
neglected. 

It would be an endless task to describe the ago- 
nies which a crooked flounce, or an ill-adjusted 
gusset — a too narrow skirt, or too stiff a train — pro- 
duced ; and then the dread that the dress might be 
sent home too late, and not allow' sufficient time to 
put it on with effect, kept many a bright eye sleep- 
less till the morning dawned. 

At length, however, the eve of the important day 
arrived. The carriage drove up to Buckingham 
House; and two tall footmen were in a moment at 
the door of the carriage — down went the steps — 
and out marched Lady Pomeroy to head her little 
procession. 

Lady Pomeroy and her nieces had scarcely en- 
tered the first room, and were looking about for 
some acquaintance, when hurrying back from 
the commencement of the crowd, came Charles 
Trevor. 

Agnes’ eyes sparkled, and her cheeks became 
suffused at the sight of him ; she thought him on 
the continent. It was upwards of three years since 
they had met, and their looks testified, that three 
years had brought with it personal improvement to 
both of them. 

“ Miss Fleming !” exclaimed he, “ I am delighted. 
What ! going to be presented 1 Pray let me have 
the pleasure of writing your cards. Lady Pome- 
rov, I presume I Pray, Ma’am, let old grudges be 
forgotten, and condescend to let a Trevor be your 
cavalier through this crowd, which is really almost 
impenetrable ; and if I may judge by my sides, 
none of the politest in the use of their elbows.” 

“ Mr. Trevor,” exclaimed Lady Pomeroy, coldly. 
Agnes looked at her beseechingly ; Amelia’s face 
never changed its expression. 

“ Yes, Ma’am, the same — the same, whom you 
knew as a boy at Brighton — when I had the honor 
to dance with Miss Fleming.” 

“ Miss J^?ies Fleming, if yon please, sir — I re- 
member. But surely you must have a very tena- 
cious memory !” Just then, luckily for Trevor, Mrs. 
Dashington’s school, and Agnes, there came such 
an influx of company, literally rushing past them, 
that if it had not been for Trevor’s protecting arm, 
Lady Pomeroy would have been absolutely hurried 
into the crowd that was making its way towards 
the presence, without either her cards or her 
nieces. 

Trevor took advantage of this — seized the pen 
and the cards, and wrote, “Miss Fleming, pre- 
sented by Lady Pomeroy,” “ Miss Agnes Flem- 
ing, presented by Lady Pomeroy.” Duplicates of 
these were quickly made and thrown upon the 
table ; each young lady took the one designed for 
her. Trevor, in spite of a slight resistance, drew 
one of Lady Pomeroy’s arms within his, while the 


other held her train, and they took their places 
at the back of the crowd. 

A number of young men who were loitering that 
they might lose no part of the scene of confusion, 
for such is every part of the palace on a drawing- 
room day, excepting the presence chamber and those 
immediately adjoining, called out after Trevor, but 
he heeded them not. 

They were now fairly in the crowd ; new comers 
had closed them in, and were pushing from behind, 
which the struggles of those before to take off their 
dresses, and to steer clear of the swords and of the 
wigs of dignitaries of the church and the law, 
which were here and there seen like cauliflowers 
in the crowd, made a mob at Buckingham House 
very similar to a mob any where else. 

These struggles were still more vehement at the 
approach to any of the doorways, to the narrow 
spaces of which the people who had occupied a 
whole room, were obliged to contract themselves to 
gain a passage to another. 

Here Trevor’s arm was of great use, and Lady 
Pomeroy ceased to regret that she had been obliged 
to him, when she felt the conveniences of passage 
which his strength and attentions obtained for her 
and her •protegees at these perilous })assages; for 
very perilous they were to flounces, feathers, and 
festoons. 

The ladies having passed through the ceremony 
of presentation, and recovered from the pressure of 
the crowd, had leisure for all the “ How d’ye dos,” 
of recognition; and to laugh “at the dangers they 
had passed.” Trevor still continued with Lady 
Pomeroy, in spite of the grave looks and assurances 
that she was “ quite ashamed to trouble him any 
more.” He was too much accustomed, however, to 
slight any hints that were not exceeding broad ones, 
to be put off easily ; so he went rattling on about 
hi§ tour, and what he had seen abroad, and drew a 
comparison between the Spanish, French, and Eng- 
lish courts: and, in short, rendered himself enter- 
taining, till “ Lady Pomeroy’s carriage stops the 
way,” hurried them down into the hall, and 
through the corridor, lest it should be sent on by 
the police before they could reach the door, in 
which case Lady Pomeroy, by sad experience, 
knew that they might have to walk a quarter of a 
mile to get to it, or be detained for hours till it 
should again come round in rotation It was at 
such times as these that she envied those who had 
the entree^ a privilege which no riches could procure 
her. 

Trevor saw them to their carriage, saying every 
thing he could to procure even a distant invitation 
from Lady Pomeroy ; but all in vain. It was use- 
less hinting where hints were not intended to be 
taken. Trevor was therefore at last obliged in 
sayirfg “ Adieu,” to add, “ that of course he should 
feel it his duty to call in Grosverior Square, to in- 
quire after them.” 

A cold bow from Lady Pomeroy was immediately 
followed by drawing up the glass. “Drive on, 
coachman,” exclaimed the policeman — away flew 
the horses — and home went the heroines to un- 
dress, and lay aside all their drawing-room para- 
phernalia, except their tiaras and featlicrs, which 
were to be again exhibited in Lady Pomeroy’s box 
at the opera. 

The tiaras and feathers, however, were not their 


THE R01j£. 


29 


only accompaniments in the opera box : For Tre- 
vor took his place beside them, and in spite of the 
cold looks of Lady Pomeroy, kept his station 
through the \\^hole of the opera and ballet; el- 
bowed his way with them along the lobby into the 
concert room, called their carriage^ and in fact did 
every thing in the world to be civil to and amuse 
Lady Pomeroy, who, on their way home, couid not 
help expressing that they were really very much 
obliged to Mr. Trevor ; to which she added, “ And 
it is a pity he is a younger brother.’’ 



CHAPTER XIII. 

There are few events in our short passage 
through life that are more contemplated by persons 
of both sexes, or anticipated with greater eager- 
ness, or which produce more bitter or sweeter 
results, than marriage. Marriage, the end of love ; 
ani alas! in how many instances is this end 
attained ? 

Love is the subject of the poet — Marriage of the 
philosopher ; the one creates a thousand imaginary 
blisses, w'hich it is the province of the other to de- 
stroy ; and yet with thousands of examples before 
our eyes of the variety of miseries which this con- 
nexion produces, unless all the judgment as well as 
the affections of our nature is exerted in its forma- 
tion, how many do we see daily and hourly making 
tlie desperate plunge, without exerting the foresight 
of ^sop’s frog, of looking into the well before 
taking the leap. But even ^sop’s frog might 
get out of the well again. But in matrimony, it is 
vedigia nulla reirorsum, and therefore both sexes 
should look well into the matter before they embark 
in it, and ascertain what are the real causes which 
induce them to commit matrimony. 

Men should ascertain whether they stand most in 
need of a wife, an heiress, or a nurse ; and whether 
it is their passions, their wants, or their infirmities, 
that induce them to wed : and women should ask 
themselves whether it is a husband, an establish- 
ment, or rank, that makes them trust their guar- 
dianship to a man. In short, both should know, 
according to the epigram, whether they are candi- 
dates for the state, propter opus, opes, or optm. 

Would people put these questions to themselves 
before they go to the altar, instead of after it, when 
they thrust themselves into the mind perforce, and 
will be answered, I am inclined to think there 
w'ould not be so many miserable families, nor so 
much business for Doctors’ Commons. A timely 
understanding of the motives that lead to the altar, 
would prevent many heart-breaking disappointments, 
which are often deplorable, often ridiculous, and al- 
ways remediless. In Mr. Fleming’s family, there 
were almost as many different opinions upon the 
subject of marriage as there were persons. His 
own ideas were entirely confined to his own ambi- 
tious projects : as he had himself married entirely 
for the purpose of connecting himself with people 
of rank, all his wishes with regard to his daughters 
had the same end in view. Lady Pomeroy’s incli- 
nations were much of the same nature, only that 
she wished to be the match-maker, and had no idea 


of either of her nieces choosing for themselves. 
Henry Pomeroy being the only male relation of 
Mr. Fleming, and the only son of his sister, he was 
destined to be the medium through which the am- 
bitious schemes w^hich they had jointly formed, 
were to be accomplished ; for M . Fh ming wis'hed 
a branch of his own family to be ennobled, and he 
had therefore determined upon a m irriage between 
young Pomeroy and Amelia, in the hope that the 
influence of the Dornton family, united to the 
power of his own wealth, would procure a baro- 
netcy for him on his taking the name of Fleming. 

Amelia’s destiny was therefore fixed, as far as 
the determination of her father and aunt were con- 
cerned ; and she was precisely the character to ren- 
der a compliance with their wishes easy. But Ag- 
nes had very different ideas : she had thought for 
herself — and what was more, had felt for herself; 
and all these thoughts and feelings had been 
buoyed up by the nature of her reading. 

She had a kind of romantic feeling of the dura- 
tion of* first impressions, and fell into that very 
common error, that first love is always the strong- 
est and the purest: that it may be the purest, is 
much more likely than that it is the strongest; 
since at the period of life that it is generally ex- 
perienced, our passions are purer because they have 
not attained their maturity; as infancy is always 
more innocent than manhood. But that first love 
is or can be the strongest, if felt in early youth, I 
much doubt, for the heart has not yet learned the 
strength of its own feelings. Passion, like every 
thing else, must grow more powerful by experience, 
and must be stronger in the full maturity of life 
than at its commencement. 

Agnes, however, could not think so — she was 
young — she had been pleased — and she thought 
she loved ; and it was agreeably to all her received 
and cheering notions, that the object of this love 
should be the youth that she had first distinguished. 
Perhaps, too, her love for Lady Emily had encou- 
raged this feeling in no small degree; and Trevor, 
being a remarkably fine young man, with showy 
talent and a great flow of animal spirits, a closer 
acquaintance was not likely to change those feel- 
ings in his favor. There was another thing that 
also worked powerful for him in her mind, and this 
was Lady Pomeroy’s prejudice against him. Her 
independent mind naturally revolted against any 
thing that in the slightest degree savoured of in- 
justice, and her heart always espoused the cause of 
those whom she considered its victims. Agnes had 
only seen Trevor in those moments when he had 
appeared amiable — she recollected with gratitude 
and pleasure the attentions which he had paid hor 
when a boy — and when he came to her as a fina 
young man, with a soldier’s laurels round his brows, 
and came too, as the brother of her dearest friend, 
it was no wonder that gratitude and pleasure 
should increase to something warmer ; and this be- 
ing the first sensation of the kind, no wonder she 
gave to it the character of that all-engrossing pas- 
sion which she had so often pictured in her imagi- 
nation. Trevor, too, was a passionate and perse- 
vering lover: Lady Pomeroy’s opposition had acted 
upon his mind precisely in the same manner in 
which it had stimulated Agnes, and had made him 
determine to succeed. 

Agnes had thus known him as a boy, and knew 


30 


THE ROUE. 


him as a man ; but she had not known him be- 
tween these epochs. She had heard indeed of his 
galant conduct in the field ; she knew his progress 
from cornet to lieutenant from lieutenant to captain, 
and from captain to major; and all this told well 
for him. But she knew nothing of the progress 
of his mind and heart during this period ; she knew 
nothing of the development of his character; she 
knew how he had lived publicly, but she was utter- 
ly ignorant of his private conduct. She knew the 
direction-posts and milestones that marked in his 
CJireer; but she was utterly ignorant of the scenery 
between them. — She recollected him an engaging 
boy — she had heard of him as a gallant soldier, and 
she received him as a passionate lover, and the 
brother of that friend whom she considered that it 
would be happiness to call sister; and with all 
these reflections she gave herself up to the de- 
licious dream of first love, and imagined for Tre- 
vor the perfections which he certainly did not pos- 
ses. And what girl of her age has not done the 
samel 

The determined friendship of Agnes for Lady 
Emily, and Jhe dislike Mr. Fleming had to offend 
any person of family, had made her nearly a con- 
stant visiter in his house in spite of Lady Pomeroy ; 
and thus Trevor as her brother, naturally also 
found a footing, though the old lady kept a very 
watchful eye upon his conduct; for she was de- 
termined that the immense fortunes which both her 
nieces would have, should never go to support a 
younger brother, and particularly the cadet of a 
family, the head of which had formerly offended 
her pride. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

Tretoh, with no decided propensity to any 
particular vice, was completely led by those with 
whom he lived’. “ Infirm of purpose,” wdth a great 
dread of ridicule, mixed with a strong passion for 
pleasure, he was a complete giroueite, subject to 
the variation of every passing wind. 

At Eton and at Oxford he had imitated the follies 
of others. He went to the Peninsula, because 
every young man of rank had done the same thing. 
He travelled, after the peace, because he found 
some of his old comrades had determined on making 
the tour of Europe; and he indulged in all the 
vices of all the capitals he passed through, first, to 
imitate the set with which he lived; and secondly, 
to escape the ridicule with which any qualm of 
conscience would inevitably have been visited. 

In some of the places where he had stopped in 
Italy, he made the acquaintance of the Honorable 
Baronet who had cut such a conspicuous figure in 
the elopement ; the history of which was given in 
Chapter XI. ; and, like every one else who had ever 
been fascinated into his society, Trevor could not 
resist its influence, and had been the participator in 
a number of intrigues, in Rome, Florence, and 
Naples; until his separation from such a dangerous 
companion, and a command from his relations at 
home, had withdrawn him from the dissipation of 
the continent, and compelled his return to England. 


During this period, he had been a partner, or 
more properly, a follower, in many of the wild ad- 
ventures of our hero; and had been present at, 
and the witness of, a bet which had been made by 
him, that within a year he would enter again inU) 
London society, and be as well received as ever. 
He had not, however, yet attempted the decision of 
this wager. 

The sight of Agnes (though it did not recall the 
feelings of his boyish days, for those had long since 
become extinct, and were nearly forgotten) inspired 
Trevor with a new passion, which he was fain to 
persuade himself and her was the continuance of 
his early love; and he thus presented himself to 
one who was already prepossessed in his favor, 
with the additional recommendation of a con- 
stancy which, in modern days, both Agnes and her 
friend Lady Emily decided to be astonishing. 

Ignorant how the intervening years had been 
spent by him, they were neither of them aware of 
the dangerous tendencies of his character ; and 
though Lady Emily knew something of the vacilla- 
tion which proved so conspicuous an element of its 
composition, she thought that the beauty and vir- 
tues of her friend would be the best remedy for this 
defect. 

Agnes was indeed all that man could desire in 
wonran ; with a person formed in r»ature’s finest 
mould ; a temper in which sweetness was blended 
with dignity ; and a heart open as the day, with 
eyes and lips that wept at woe or laughed at mer- 
riment. Agnes presented a specimen of the sex, 
which the proudest man might be proud to have 
called hi.v own. 

Trevoi saw and was completely conquered ; and 
W'ith thf., usual vascilation of his character, every 
dissipation was immediately given up ; he thought 
himself for about the fiftieth time inspired by a pas- 
sion which was to last for ever ; and so he swore 
it would, both to Agnes herself and to his sister, 
whom he found a very useful ally in his pursuit. 

The habit of thinking of him, the recollections 
of their early intercourse, a prejudiced idea of the 
strength and never ending influence of a first love, 
were all favorable things for Trevor in the mind 
and head of Agnes; and unfortunately, the Argus 
eyes of Lady Pomeroy prevented her from forming 
any other estimate of Trevor’s character, than 
such as she could obtain from short and hurried 
interviews in mixed society^ in assemblies — or at 
the Opera ; and in them he w'as well calculated to 
shine, as he had a great gift of small-talk ; had 
read much poetry ; could descant plausibly on vari- 
ous subjects; and had, undoubtedly, seen a great 
deal of the world. Added to this, he was really 
passionately in love; and love, we all know, will 
turn dullness into eloquence, to the ear and heart 
that are prepossessed in favor of the speaker. 

Had Ijfldy Pomeroy permitted that unrestrained 
intercourse between Agnes and Trevor which his 
sister’s intimacy with her might have sanctioned, 
it is very probable that her penetration might have 
developed his real character, and thus the danger 
Lady Pomeroy dreaded, had been avoided ; or per- 
haps the passion of Trevor himself, unfed by op- 
position, might, with the usual volatility of his 
character, have gradually subsided, or given place 
to some new feeling for some other beauty. 

While however they met each other so seldom, 


THE R0U£. 


31 


she never saw him but with his mind and heart in 
their holiday dress ; and never hearing of him ex- 
cept through the medium of his partial sister, she 
became acquainted only with the favorable parts of 
his character. 

Besides, Trevor knew well how to express his 
passion ; he could talk of love, and feeling, and 
sentiment: could picture domestic happiness; des- 
cant on the intercourse of souls ; and converse on 
all the secret sympathies of the human heart. In 
short, he was well versed in all the hacknied lan- 
guage of passion, which never appears nonsencical, 
even to the most penetrating, when the heart is 
' first giving way to the impression of love. 

Trevor thus only presented an outline of his 
character to Agnes, which her vivid imagination 
tinfortunately filled up with every trait she wished 
him to possess ; and thus she became enamoured 
with the creature of her own imagination — with 
what she wished Trevor to be, rather than with 
what he actually was. , 

I'his feeling in such a heart as that of Agnes 
was rather increased than diminished, by the op- 
position w'hich he met with from Lady Pomeroy 
and her father. His being a younger brother, and 
entirely dependent on the kindness of his relatives 
and his profession of arms for his income, gave 
him, in her eyes, an additional claim to her affec- 
tion. Her generous spirit revolted from such grovel- 
ing ideas : wealth and station never found an ad- 
vocate in her bosom; and she annoyed both her 
father and Lady Pomeroy by the frequent disregard 
of all that they considered desirable in life — rank 
and etiquette. 

Indeed, this was the principal, perhaps the only 
fault in her character ; « for conscious rectitude made 
her so completely regardless of mere punctilio and 
form, that she was too apt to display an indepen- 
dence of opinion in her remarks which is far from 
being a pleasing, and is always a very dangerous 
trait in the character of a young woman. 

It was in vain that coronet after coronet was 
laid at her feet, either by the declarations of their 
possessors themselves, or through the medium of 
Lady Pomeroy and her father. It was in vain that 
the advantages of rank, the extent of jointure, the 
splendor of establishments, were talked of. Agnes 
turned a deaf ear to every proposal. She pitied 
and was silent over the one or two instances of 
true love which she regretted to have inspired, be- 
cause they could only create unhappiness; but she 
ridiculed and triumphed over the many who sought 
her only on account of the consols, India bonda, 
exchequer bills, and ready cash, which it was well 
known would be the portion of either of Mr. Flem- 
ing’s lovely daughters. 

From the moment they came out, Amelia and 
Agnes had become the mark of all the manoeuvring 
mammas who had sons to marry ; and to all the 
young and dissolute noblemen, who wished for 
Mr. Fleming’s gold to repair the depredations 
which profligacy and extravagance had made in 
their estates. 

Lady Pomeroy, how'ever, having very early 
made known the destination of Amelia, Agnes be- 
came alone the object of these pursuits ; and a 
very few months were sufficient to disgust her with 
the selfishness and the indelicacy with which they 
were prosecuted* as well as with the envy and 


rancor of those wdio would consider her as a rival, 
in spite of all that she could do to prove the con- 
trary. Every refusal was attributed to pride and 
ambition, and to her wish for a husband of superior 
rank to any that had yet offered. 

The etfects created in Agnes’ mind during these 
few months, served greatly to confirm her heart in 
its original sentiments. She saw too much of her 
world to respect its opinions, and every day added 
some argument in favor of her owm predilection for 
feeling in preference to form, and continued her in 
that independence of mind which had so early been 
one of her principal characteristics. 

Wherever talent or genius of any kind existed, 
no matter the rank or the station of its possessor, 
it was sure to find a patroness in Agnes ; and many 
were the severe lessons she received from her aunt 
and father for giving her attention to some poor 
poet or player, whose talent had made him a path 
into society ; W’hile lordlings were, by dozens, 
waiting for the smiles whieh she so lavishingly be- 
stowed on the efforts of genius. 

In the meantime, her feelings in favor of Trevor 
gained a more decided ground as she perceived 
the evident injustice done him by Lady Pomeroy. 
Trevor himself felt this, and it only increased his 
determination to succeed ; for he was a very obsti- 
nate man sometimes, and to tell him he should not 
do a thing, was very frequently only giving him 
an additional incitement to its accomplishment. 
He likewise enjoyed the evident and sometimes 
ludicrous distress his presence occasioned the old 
lady, and very naturally felt vain of the decided 
preference which Agnes gave him over all her 
other admirers. 

It was with Lady Emily, hey^vever, only, that 
Agnes conversed on this subject; and they both 
quite agreed, that though she had a right to refuse 
to listen to any other proposals, i^was clear that she 
ought not to act in opposition to her father’s wishes 
on a point so important. As to the wishes of 
Lady Pomeroy, as Agnes perfectly well knew why 
they were indulged, she honestly confessed that they 
had no weight with her ; to the old lady’s great 
annoyance, therefore, wherever they appeared, 
Trevor was sure to appear also. At Howell and 
James’, he was sure to be loitering down the street 
just at the moment to put them into their carriage. 
In the Park, his horse could never get beyond the 
side of their barouche. At dinner, in spite of all 
Lady Pomeroy’s manoeuvres, she was sure to see 
Trevor seated between his sister and Agnes. At 
the opera, she might as well have attempted to have 
removed the pillars of Hercules from their station, 
as have frowned or hinted Trevor out of her box ; 
for nothing less than main force could have ejected 
him from the position which he took up every 
Tuesday and Saturday night of the season, behind 
the cane-bottomed chair of Agnes. At quadrille 
parties, if Lady Pomeroy left her ecarte table for a 
moment, she was sure to see Ttevox pas de basque'- 
ing, or dos-a-dos-mg with Agnes. In short, go% 
where she would, he was still there; and in the 
very places where she had calculated he could gain 
no admittance, the first face she was sure to see 
was the eternally smiling one of Charles Trevor. 

Public report, with busy tongue, soon set down 
a match between Trevor and Agnes as a deter- 
mined thing, in spite of all the assertions to tUo 


32 


THE ROUfi 


contrary made everywhere by Lady Pomeroy : 
who, indeed, made it one great business of her 
life to contradict this surmise, and to proclaim that 
her niece’s hand was still disengaged ; and that 
she was free to receive any proposals of marriage 
from any person of a certain rank and fortune. 

In the meantime, the other personages of out* 
drama were not idle. — Lady Emily’s heart and 
affections were courted and earnestly sought after 
by the persevering attentions of Mr. Hartley; 
an esteem for his character was, unknown to her- 
self, gradually ripening into a warmer feeling; 
so that there were many who knew them, who 
predicted that only a little time was requisite to 
transform Lady Emily Trevor into Lady Emily 
Hartley. But this she most pertinaciously denied 
when she was accused of it. 

Hartley was one of those young men of fortune, 
of whom we have at present very few. He con- 
sidered it to be a duty he owed to his tenants to 
reside a certain portion of the year on his estate, 
t© redress their grievances, and look after their 
affairs himself, instead of leaving their fate in the 
hands of some mercenary agent. 

'Pile consequence was, that his tenants were 
ha^)py, never over-rented, and loved their landlord. 
His oaks and elms still flourished in his forests, 
and still decorated hfs park ; for no London dissi- 
pation and extravagance had condemned them to 
the axe. His income, though not so great in no- 
minal amount, w'as more in reality than that of 
several whose rent-rolls showed double the sum 
that he did ; because there w^as no rent fixed on 
farmers, which their produce did not enable them 
to pay ; and Hartley derived more pleasure from 
the smiling faces of his happy tenantry as he rode 
through his estate, than he could ever have re- 
ceived from the possession of a few more thousand 
pounds per anhuu^, produced from their cares and 
labors. 

In short. Hartley was a good specimen of an 
English country gentleman — not one of your roar- 
ing, drinking, fox-hunting squires, who live on 
their own estates, because they are out of their 
element, and unendurable every where else — but an 
ornament to the unpaid magistracy of the coun- 
try — an independent representative of the county 
in which he was born, and which contained his 
property, and in every respect a man formed to be 
one of the pillars of the third estate in the consti- 
tution of England. 

But with all this. Hartley had but little senti- 
ment ; and Agnes often rallied her friend in the 
possession of such a mere matter-of-fact lover. He, 
however, had a fund of good feeling in his heart, 
and though incapable of that frippery of affection 
which evaporates in display, he had all the ele- 
ments of a wholesome and manly love in his com- 
position, and the whole of those elements were en- 
grossed by Lady Emily. 

His was not a character to shine in the ordinary 
^course of society; but there were qualities in it 
which gave a certain resource in all times of diffi- 
culty and trouble in the long perfection of existence. 
He was a man upon whom a woman might safely 
calculate to find an affectionate and constant pro- 
tector; and a husband whose love would outlast the 
gratification of his passion. In short. Hartley was 
•ne of those sterling characters that make their 


way w'ith sensible people; one who would be de- 
scribed as the best creature in the world by one 
part of it, and a most insufferable bore by the 
other. 

He had made no impression upon Lady Emily 
at first ; her mind and heart were too romantic in 
their ideas to conceive any thing like love at first 
sight for such a man as Mr. Hartley. But in her 
progress through society, when she compared the 
sterling qualities of his heart and the good sense of 
his conversation with the more shining, but more 
superficial accomplishments of others, her reason 
invariably decided the comparison in his favor in 
spite of herself. 

She saw, too, the dangerous tendency of giving 
way to the warmth of feeling in the contemplation 
of the character of her friend ; and in time found 
in the candor and honesty of Hartley, which never 
permitted any fault of hers to pass without a remark 
that w'as calculated to correct it, something more 
solid to admire and be pleased at, than at the flat- 
tery by which she was assailed by a host of more gay 
and fashionable adorers. 

But this increasing influence of Hartley she still 
pettishly denied, and never acknowledged it even 
to herself. Her young imagination had dressed 
up a creature of its own conception as the man 
who was to rob her heail of its first love; and 
Hartley was not at all such a man as she had 
imagined. 

“ Besides,” she would say, “ what lover ever 
hoped to succeed by telling his mistress of her 
faults 1 — doubtless she had many,” (and this was 
said with a becoming look of humility.) “ But a 
lover ought to be blind to them at any rate. There 
were enough envious people who hated her in the 
world to point her defects, without a man who 
professed himself her admirer giving himself that 
trouble.” 

Hartley bore all the rebuffs she gave him with 
patience, because she never forbade the continuance 
of his suit ; and he had too much tact to risk any 
decided refusal by any decided proposition. But 
yet he felt he was gaining ground, or at least flat- 
tered himself so;, and he therefore still continued, 
contrary to his nature, to pursue her from opera to 
route, and from party to party ; though there was 
not a place that did not teem with heart-aches for 
him, as he saw her ear engrossed by the witticisms 
of one, or the heroism of another, or of the flattery 
of a third. Dancing, too, was out of the question 
with him; and he was therefore condemned to 
watch her through all the movements of her quad- 
rille, and to feel a twinge every time he saw her 
hand clasped in that of her partner. Lady Emily, 
however, almost unconsciously avoided as much af^ 
possible all occasions of giving him pangs of this 
nature. 

A secret presentiment that, in spite of the oppo- 
sition in their present tempers and pursuits, she 
would one day be his, induced him still to pursue a 
manner of life which he despised, that he might 
have his eye continually upon her ; and though he 
never sacrificed his candor in her praise, he did 
not confine his observations merely to her faults ; 
till Lady Emily at length began tc relish praise 
I from Hartley with a feeling of pleasure, at which 
i she was herself surprised. As to her other ad- 
] mirers, they had no fear of Hartley. He was too 


33 


THE R0U£. 


plain, too unpresuming a person to give them any 
idea of a dangerous rival ; if the thought crossed 
their mind that he loved her, it was accompanied 
by a supercilious smile, and a mental comparison 
between him and themselves, which of course ended 
much in their own favor. They could never ima- 
gine that the country-gentleman, as he was called, 
could have any attractions for the gay and beauti- 
ful Lady Emily Trevor, and they laughed when 
her brother would sometimes state his opinion, that 
the tortoise would win the race at last. 

For his own part, Hartley had in truth often re- 
pented the circumstance of his falling in love with 
a being apparently so dissimilar to himself, and la- 
mented that he had not stifled his passion at its 
commencement ; but it was now too late ; Lady 
Emily had become necessary to his happiness, and 
he was determined to persevere while there was 
the slightest hopes of success. 

Wherever, therefore. Lady Emily went, there 
also was Hartley watching her with the anxious 
eye of a guardian lover ; sometimes endured, often 
scolded, but always attentive. He would, designate 
himself her mentor — she called him her tormentor ; 
but in spite of their numerous disagreements, their 
hearts were coming to a better understanding every 
day, and Lady Emily felt herself better and better 
pleased, and much more gratified by the honest, 
ardent attachment of the plain Mr. Hartley, than 
she did with the fulsome attentions and flatteries 
of a dozen others, who rank themselves among the 
finest young men about town. 

At this period, one of Mr. Fleming’s boroughs 
becoming vacant, Henry Pomeroy was recalled from 
the Continent, where he had been travelling since 
be had taken his degrees at Oxford, to fill the va- 
cant seat, and to accomplish the project of his mo- 
ther and uncle, by marrying Amelia. 

His senses were captivated with the beauty of 
his cousin ; and deeming the coldness of her dis- 
position to arise from mere maiden bashfulness, 
he entered with avidity into the schemes of 
his mother, as far as it regarded his union with 
Amelia. 

Not so, however, with respect to the politic.al 
shemes for the aggrandisement of the faniily, pro- 
jected by Mr. Fleming. As to the change of name 
from Pomeroy to Fleming, that was perfectly in- 
different to him, but in all the points of [>olitical 
opinion, they were as far asunder in their ideas as 
the antipodes. 

Young, ardent, and impetuous, Henry thought, 
acted, and spoke, upon the principal points of mo- 
dern politics, with a freedom of discussion that 
astonished and alarmed Mr. Fleming, who had 
never thought at all, but blindly followed in the 
track pursued by whoever happened to be in 
power. 

Catholic Emancipation — Parliamentary Reform 
— the Abolition of Slavery — the Reduction of 
Taxes — March of Intellect — were the themes up- 
on which Henry Pomeroy indulged, in the full 
power of youthful eloquence ; and Mr. Fleming 
trembled, lest the schemes of ambition which he 
had been so long pursuing, should be destroyed by 
the maiden speech of his nephew. 

These schemes had gradually increased in their 
extent, as he had felt the accumulation of his influ- 
ence, since his accession by purchase to two more 


borougns ; and dreading lest the impetuosity of 
Henry’s temper might undo all that he had been so 
long doing, he called him into the library to detail 
the whole of his projects. In this conversation, no 
longer content with a baronetcy, he stated that he 
had not only hinted at his expectations of a peer- 
age, with a remainder to his nephew, but that it 
had actually been promised him ; and this, accom- 
panied by such talents as Henry possessed, he 
foresaw might lead to the highest honors of the 
state. 

Upon his favorite topic, even Mr. Fleming could 
be eloquent, and he portrayed to Henry all the 
splendors and advantages which awaited his adop- 
tion of the same political opinions with himself. 
Henry, however, was obstinate ; he would submit 
to no compromise. If he accepted a seat in parlia- 
ment, it must be with complete independence as to 
his “ ayes and noes.” 

It was in vain that Mr. Fleming attempted to 
show the absurdity and folly of playing a game by 
which he could get nothing. Henry was obstinate, 
till his uncle, for the first time in his life, fell into a 
passion, dismissed him with violence, and deter- 
mined to marry again, and have an heir of his own, 
to accomplish those darling schemes of ambition, 
which he had so long contemplated with delight, 
went to bed, and was found by his servant the next 
morning dead. 

Such an unusual event as a fit of passion had 
thrown the blood into his head, and occasioned 
apoplexy ; and thus ended all the ambitious schemes 
of Mr. Fleming. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The extreme coldness of Mr. Fleming’s disposi- 
tion, and his steady pursuit of his ambitious projects, 
by shutting up all the kindly feelings of his nature, 
had rendered him a person whose loss, either as a 
parent or friend, could not create any violent or 
lasting grief. 

• A very few months were sufficient to dry the 
tears' and console the mourners for Mr. Fleming’s 
loss ; and this man, so important in his own esti- 
mation, and without whom he actually thought the 
machine of the world could scarcely move, became 
nearly, if not totally, forgotten. 

The family began to think of renewing all the 
projects of alliance which his death had inter- 
cepted. 

Trevor became again the same persevering per- 
secutor of Lady Pomeroy that he had been before ; 
but Lady Pomeroy had now more power, and de- 
termined to exert it. 

Convinced that nothing could tend so much to 
the misery of Agnes as her marrying a younger 
brother, with such remote contingencies as Charles 
Trevor, she set her face decidedly against the match, 
and took upon herself to forbid his visits and atten- 
tions ; and the more effectually to break off all in- 
tercourse between the young people, she also 
requested that Lady Emily would cease to be so 
constant an inmate of Grosvenor Square, and com 
manded Agnes to give up her friend. 


34 


THE ROUC. 


' Agnes, however, acknowledged no such autho- 
rity as that which Lady Pomeroy seemed inclined 
to assume ; and though she said nothing about 
Charles Trevor, she loudly protested she would 
not break off her intercourse with his sister — the 
friend of her childhood, the school-fellow of her 
heart. 

Lady Pomeroy was too firmly convinced that 
while this liaison existed, there w^as no chance of 
the brother’s being discarded, to give up her point; 
and she determined to carry it, by removing to 
Fleming Hall, where no mixed society and large 
parties afforded the facilities for meeting, which 
were of course to be found in the circles of 
London. 

All her ladyship’s attempts were, however, at- 
tended with precisely the contrary effects to those 
which she anticipated ; for the greater her opposi- 
tion, the more determined and pertinacious became 
Trevor to succeed, and the more Agnes thought 
she saw the injustice of her aunt. 

To do Lady Pomeroy justice, she had latterly 
been rather more particular in her inquiries with 
respect to Trevor ; and in the midst of her ques- 
tions of how many removes he was from the family- 
title, and what expectations he had from his nume- 
rous connexions, she had heard tales of vacillation 
of principle and of dissipation, upon which she 
determined to ground her opposition to the match ; 
and trusted to do so with more success, when it 
was his character and conduct she condemned, 
rather than his want of fortune. 

The fact was, that during the very short cessa- 
tion of his intercourse with Agnes that Mr. Flem- 
ing’s death had necessarily occasioned, he had 
fallen in with some of his former associates, and 
had been shamed by their ridicule into many of ids 
old pursuits. 

Lady Emily had witnessed this with pain ; and 
was rejoiced when Agnes, again mixing in society, 
recalled her brother from a path, the pursuit of 
W'hich must have lost her to him for ever: for, 
after all, it was the apparent constancy of his 
attachment that had the greatest charm for Agnes. 

Reports, however, of this temporary defalcation 
of Trevor having reached the ears of La<ly Pome- 
roy, she was not long in making them additional 
argumetns against his encouragement by Agnes; 
but unfortunately the eagerness with which she 
used these arguments and^repeated these rumors, 
defeated her own projects, and only tended to con- 
firm Agnes in the idea she had formed of the un- 
just prejudices of her aunt. 

To the same account, or to the score of envy, 
were also placed several hints of the same nature, 
which she received from various intimates in her 
circle. But as these were also intimates of Lady 
Pomeroy, she attributed all they said to her insti- 
gation. 

One circumstance about this time made a deeper 
impression on her mind than all these reports ; 
which was an anonymous intimation to the same 
effect, which she found one night on her dressing 
table. It was wntten in an old-fashioned hand- 
writing, and ran tnus: — 

“ Proceed not hastily — listen to your friends. 
Trevor is not the man you suppose him to be. 
What his affection and your influence may effect, 


. is still in the wmmb of time : but sacrifice not your 
happiness to an uncertainty. Your mind, disposi- 
tion, temper, and pursuits, are dissimilar. He ig 
vacillating and volatile, though ardent. If your 
heart be too far engaged to give him up entirely, 
at least take time: try his constancy by absence. 
It is the advice of one who knows him better than 
you can — of one to whom your happiness is dearer 
than his own.” 

No inquiry that Agnes could make enabled her 
even to guess at the writer of this epistle ; to which 
in spite of her habitual contempt of anonymous 
information, she could not help giving more atten- 
tion than she afterwards thought it deserved. The 
last sentence, however, admitting a misconstruction, 
and suggesting the idea, that it might be the pro- 
duotion of a rival, it was soon classed among the 
many other futile attempts to set her against Tre- 
vor. The handwriting too was so remarkable that 
it appeared feigned ; and the letter might therefore 
be the production of one of the many whom she 
knew her aunt employed to induce her to give up 
her lover. 

At .length, Lady Pomeroy’s pursuits permitted 
her temporary migration from the scenes of gayeiy 
and London to the retirement of Fleming Hall ; 
and thither she compelled Agnes, much against 
her will, to go, without her friend Lady Emily. 
Indeed, their party being merely a family one, they 
were accompanied only by Henry Pomeroy, whose 
nearly approaching marriage with Amelia rendered 
him her incessant attendant. 

Luckily for Trevor, Lady Pomeroy, left Flem- 
ing Hall, and went away on a visit to a distant 
part of the country for a few days. She having 
been led to believe that Agnes had lately listened 
with a more favorable ear to her counsels, with re- 
gard to resigning all ideas of Trevor, and paying 
a niorc implicit obedience to the wishes of her 
aunt. 

Lady Pomeroy’s absence gave Agnes the leisure 
and opportunity of preparing for her approaching 
departure and nuptials, which were to take place 
without the knowledge of her aunt. 

The banns were published, and the appointe*^ 
morning arrived. 

The maid of Agnes was to accompany her, 
and it was determined that Lady Emily’s carriage 
should take them both up at the Park-gate. Agnes 
rejoiced in the absence of Lady Porrierc* anly m 
it prevented any scene of altercation ; every thing 
conspired ’-o the wishes of the parties* Agnes 
arrived at Lady Trevor’s at night, and in the 
morning, in the presence of nearly the whole 
of his family, she became the wife of Charles 
Trevor. 

Lady Pomeroy’s violent indignation on becoming 
acquainted with the fact of the marriage, soon 
subsided. For the very same post which brought 
a tetter announcing the marriage of Agnes, also 
communicated to Lady Pomeroy that, in conse- 
quence of the death of an uncle, I'revor had be- 
come the proprietor of a rich inheritance. 

This, together with the idea that he was but 
two removes from the earldom, and that one of his 
elder brothers was consumptive, and the other un- 
married, completely softened Lady Pomeroy’s in- 
dignation. 


THJe R0U£. 


35 


CHAPTER XVL 

It appears to us, that the old romance and 
novel writers (^we do not allude to those of the 
days and style of the Ma’amselles Scuderys, but to 
those of five-and-twenty years since) were wrong 
in finishing the history of their heroine with her 
marriage. 

Marriage is rather that era in which the most 
interesting part of a woman’s memoirs begins, and 
at any rale is the commencement of a new exist- 
ence. 

New and delicious ties attach her to life — new 
prospects open to her view — new and sacred re- 
sponsibilities arise around her to be fulfilled — she 
is entering into all the reality of that which she 
has hitherto been anticipating — and no longer a 
girl, she looks round the world and through society 
with an air which seems with proud consciousness 
to declare that — she is a woman. 

Much is written — much thought — and much 
said on the dangers of young and inexperienced 
women in the world ; but in modern and good 
society this risk is merely imaginary as far as it re- 
gards single women ; no one presumes to address a 
whisper in the ear of a young unmarried woman, 
unless he has some remote ideas of matrimony. 
Seduction seldom or ever enters a man’s head when 
there is the possiblity of his being compeiieJ, either 
through cowardice or some other motive, to make 
a compensation by the sacrifice of his liberty. 
Should such an idea be engendered in the mind of 
any man, the moment he begins to act upon it, a 
multitude of mammas, aunts, and fathers, with 
brothers and cousins in the back ground, flock 
around him to demand his intentions. A young 
girl is therefore sure to be put upon her guard ; and 
is secure, because her lover must make his ap- 
proaches through a chevaux-de-frise of relations, 
and accompany every sigh and sonnet with a pro- 
posal and a setlement. 

If such a circumstance as the seduction of an 
unmarried lady occurs in society, she is generally 
the victim of some married libertine, who has com- 
r»enced his insidious attacks by exciting pity at 
the uncongeniality between himself and his wife ; 
by teaching his victim this, through the medium 
of silent complaints, he first incites her to find an 
apology for his want of conjugal love; she then 
ceases to wonder that he has fixed his affections 
upon her. at last confers her own upon him. 

Your unfettered libertine never pays an attention 
W'here its object may be mistaken; and he has in 
general such a horror of matrimony, that he stran- 
gles every passion .in its birth, that may by any 
remote chance lead to such a result. 

Marriage thus, in the modern state of society, 
lays a woman open to a thousand more scenes and 
temptations than her maidenhood can possibly pre- 
sent ; and consequently, the greatest and most 
interesting portion of the history of her passions, 
her affections, occurs after the formation of this 
liahon. 

As to Agnes, the forgiveness of Lady Pomeroy 
had removed the only cloud that appeared to darken 
her felicity. Blessed with the husband of her 
choice, and conceiving that husband to be all that her 
young imagination had pictured to her that a hus- 


band ought to be, felt herself the most blessed of 
human creatures ; and with a heart so happy, that 
she scarcely knew how to contain it within any 
moderate bounds, she jumped into the carriage 
which was to convey them to Trevor Place, to which 
he had just succeeded, by the bequest which had ar- 
rived so opportunely to propitiate Lady Pomeroy. 

The invitation to Fleming Hall had been thank- 
fully declined ; for when could two hearts in love, 
and in the full accomplishment of their wishes, 
think of the formulae of settlements, or devote them- 
selves to the dull drudgery of business. 

Away, therefore, they went to Trevor Place, 
feeling themselves the whole world to each other, 
and that the eye or the presence of any third per- 
son would have, in some degree, marred their pre- 
sent felicity. 

The weather was delightful ; the sun shone, and 
the birds sang ; all nature appeared in its holiday 
dress ; but the sun had never shone so brightly — 
the birds had never sung so sweetly — the beauties 
of nature had never appeared so beautiful to the 
eyes of Agnes as they did now. Her life appeared 
like the clear sky before her, without a cloud to 
darken its brightness; all nature seemed to har- 
monise with the buoyant feelings of her own heart, 
and it would have been difficult, under her present 
sensations, to have convinced her that there was 
such a thing as misery in the world. 

Their journey was a mixture of endearments and 
projects for the future ; a thousand delightful plans 
were proposed and discussed ; the improvement of 
their estate — the happiness of their tenantry — the 
morning ramble — the noontide ride— the social 
evening — the uninterrupted enjoyment of each 
other’s society — were mingled with a hundred 
projects of doing good to their fellow-creatures — of 
increasing their own happiness by adding to that 
of others. 

It w'as a beautiful evening towards the end of 
autumn, when they arrived on the summit of a high 
hill, which commanded a complete view of the 
country for many miles round ; and among other 
well remembered objects, Trevor pointed out the 
hall of the ancestors of that branch of his family, to 
which he had thus suddenly become the heir. The 
chimneys of the mansion were only visible above 
the dark trees by which it was surrounded ; a 
river gently glided through the domain, and swept 
its serpentine course quite through the country, 
sparkling in the last refulgent rays of the set- 
ting sun, which was now rapidly declining; glitter- 
ing first on the windows of the farm houses and 
villas with which the country was studded, then 
upon the gilded vanes of several village churches 
that here and there reared their humble spires amid 
a cluster of thatched cottages ; and lastly, throw- 
ing a parting gleam upon the summit of the hill on 
which Trevor had ordered the drivers to stop for a 
few minutes, that he and Agnes might enjoy the 
beauty of the scenery. 

As they descended into the valley, their animated 
conversation gradually subsided into deep silence ; 
a sensation of pleasing melancholy mingled with 
their happiness ; their clasped hands alone spoke 
their afibction ; and perhaps this state of feeling is 
a degree of happiness far superior to the greatest 
buoyancy of pleasure that can be enjoyed. A thou- 
sand boyish recollections connected with the place 


36 


THE ROUlii. 


to which they were going were rapidly passing 
through Trevor’s mind, as every tree, cottage, and 
spire recalled some infant feat. 

Agnes began to feel that she was going to take 
the first possession of her husband’s house as its 
mistress ; and a deep feeling of her responsibilities 
mingled with her happiness. 

Trevor, in a faltering voice, himself welcomed 
her with a warm embrace to a mansion of his own, 
and gloried in calling it “ her home, the home of 
bis beloved, his adored Agnes.” Unable any 
longer to control her feelings, she burst into a flood 
of tears, and threw herself upon the bosom of her 
huvsband. Trevor himself was far from being un- 
moved, though he blushed to feel that the fulness 
of his own eyes threatened to mingle his tears with 
those of his wife. 

But those are delicious tears w’hich arise from 
the excess of happiness — from the overflowing of a 
full heart, which has no other vent for the expres- 
sion of its delight. How different from those of 
regret, passion, or remorse ! How different from 
those which grief sends to dim the eye and plough 
their furrows on the cheeks over which they flow ! 
But, alas ! how few occasions are there in this life 
for such tears as those which were now shed by 
Agnes ! 

The next morning rose brightly, and saw Tre- 
vor and Agnes making the round of their estate, 
becoming acquainted with their tenants and their 
families; and here we must leave them, attempting 
to realize all the anticipations indulged in their 
journey, while we take a cursory view of the events 
at Fleming Hall. 

There could scarcely be two beings with minds 
and hearts more dissimilar than those of Henry 
Pomeroy and Amelia Fleming. 

A slave to the influence of her beauty, he loved 
her passionately — madly ; and it was with a feel- 
ing almost allied to frenzy that sometimes after 
one of the most eminent effusions of his passion, 
in which he would picture all his warm feelings, all 
his sanguine anticipations, that he would hear her 
coldly refer to her aunt’s opinion as to the propriety 
of his sentiments. 

.Sometimes, with all the eloquence of love, he 
would address her for hours together, but obtain 
little else than placid smiles, cold affirmations and 
silent consents: still hoping that time, attention, 
and the warmth of his passion, would at length 
kindle her into something less statue-like ; con- 
vinced that she cared for no one else — and hoping 
that the coldness of the maid would not be carried 
into the character of the bride — he permitted the 
preparations for their marriage to proceed. But to 
be thus at one time warmed into passion by the 
contemplation of her beauty, and at another chil- 
led into ice by the freezing temperature of her dis- 
position, Henry Pomeroy, though in the full cer- 
tainty of the possession of his mistress, was far 
from being a happy lover. 

All the preparations for the nuptials of this 
couple, of course, proceeded perfectly, according to 
the rules of etiquette. Settlements were drawn 
up — parchments engrossed — jointure and pin-money 
discussed — and all the attorney-ship” of matri- 
mo*iy most punctiliously preserved to the no small 
annoyance of the impatient Henry. 

These were, however, not the only trials of his 


¥ 

patience, that he was destined to undergo. For 
when the settlements were completed, a new ward- 
robe was to be furnished ; and the choice of silks, 
satins, laces, and sarsnets, occupied quite as much, 
if not more time than the engrossment of parch- 
ments. But Lady Pomeroy was determined that 
every thing should proceed according to her fa- 
vorite term en regie: and Amelia had no other 
idea than that of following her aunt’s instructions, 
and of never travelling on single hair’s-breadih out 
of the straight path which fashion and propriety 
had prescribed. 

At length, however, a distant day was fixed — 
the guests were invited — the bishop of the diocess 
agreed to perform the ceremony. The bridegroom 
was as impatient as his patient mother would per- 
mit him to be : Amelia was as beautiful, and cold, 
and lady-like, as ever. The day came — they were 
united in the presence of a numerous and select 
assembly at Fleming Hall, partook of an elegant 
collation, and set off in a post-chariot and four, ac- 
companied by the two bride’s maids to a seat which 
had been settled upon Amelia by her father’s will. 
Their journey was, however, so ditTerent from that 
of Trevor and Agnes, that we are almost ashamed 
to say, that Henry found the presence of the bride’s 
maids a relief. 

The honey-moon of this couple passed, as it 
might be supposed to pass, where all was passion 
and rapture on one side, and cold propriety on the 
other. Ice and fire were not more opposite than the 
dispositions of Henry and Amelia, though all thb 
fire of the one could not melt the ice of the other- 

In the midst of his most passionate delight her 
chilling punctilio would throw his feelings back upon 
his heart in an agony, to find that the cold mistress 
had only become the passionless bride — and that 
all that she knew — all that she practised — all that 
she felt — never extended beyond the proprieties of 
life. His raptures were returned by allusions to 
ceremony and etiquette. His feelings repressed 
by punctilious attentions to set forms. Henry 
gloried that the beauty of his wife equalled that of 
a Venus of Canova ; but he had not anticipated 
that the likeness would have extended to the mar 
ble from which it was sculptured. 




CHAPTER XVH. 

In’ the meantime, Trevor and Agnes had almost 
realized their sanguine anticipations during the first 
month of her marriage. The morning ramble- 
the social evening — produced the pleasures they had 
expected from them, and Agnes was still in the 
plenitude of their enjoy ment, wishing for no change, 
her heart full of happiness; blessed, and trying to 
bless; but Trevor soon — very soon began to feel the 
want of that excitement upon which alone he ex- 
isted. The calm and quiet enjoyment of his wife’s 
society, which immediately succeeded the first ra}*- 
turous possession of her beauty, was not at all cal- 
culated to keep alive the mind, and the passions, 
of such a man as Trevor. He missed the necessity 
for plotting and planning, which had kept him so 
continually occupied during his probation as a lover j 


4b 


37 


THE R0U£ 


a perpetual round of the quiet enjoyments, the pla- 
cid pleasures with a wife, which characterised his 
present existence, proved to him but a poor com- 
pensation for days of restless impatience, succeeded 
by one hour of rapturous intercourse enjoyed by 
«tea’*.h with his mistress. He began also to be 
astonished at discovering how much the idea of 
opposing and tormenting Lady Pomeroy had added 
to the pleasure he had felt in his interviews with 
Agnes. 

VV^ith such feelings as these, the endless succes- 
sion of morning rambles, noontide rides, and tete^a- 
tete evenings, soon became insipid. Agnes was 
still as beautiful, her society as delightful, her wit 
as buoyant, her conversation as brilliant, and her 
music as sweet as ever ; but they were his. He 
had a right to their possession ; he enjoyed them 
without exertion, and they lost half their value in 
his opinion. 

Ashamed, however, to appear thus vascillating 
in the eyes of a woman he admired and respected, 
as he did Agnes, he still kept on in their usual 
routine, though it was with much the same diffi- 
culty as a man feels to keep his eyes open when he 
is almost irresistibly overpowered with the inclina- 
tion to sleep. It was in vain, however, that he 
determined to enjoy himself as usual ; the incipient 
yawn would intrude itself in the midst of his quiet 
pleasures ; the hunting notices were eagerly looked 
after ; the necessity for intercourse with the sur- 
rounding gentry was gradually discovered ; and the 
morning ramble was frequently exchanged for a 
gallop after the fox-hounds ; and the quiet evening 
sometimes broken in upon by the hunting com- 
panions Trevor brought home to dinner, or by the 
necessity for their attendance at some party in the 
neighborhood. 

Agnes sighed at Trevor’s discovery of these ne- 
cessities which he swore were quite as annoying to 
him as they were to her. But then, my love,” 
he would say, “ one must do as other people do;” 
and, “ one must look after one’s interest in the 
county and, “ one cannot cut one’s neighbors,” 
&c. In short, Trevor was seldom at a loss for some 
excuse to break in upon the tenor of a life which 
was, w^e are ashamed to confess it, beginning to be 
almost a bore to him. 

Some of his fox-hunting companions too had 
quizzed him for having been tied so long to his 
wife’s apron-string ; and this put him on the deter- 
mination to prove that they were wrong. Others 
again spoke in raptures of the accomplishments 
and beauties of his wife; and this gratified his 
vanity, and made him wish to see her more in 
society. 

Still, however, he would occasionally return to 
that life from which they had both anticipated so 
much pleasure, and from which Agnes still derived 
her principal delight. But we are bound to con- 
fess that this was generally during a hard frost, 
when the scent would not lay ; and a fine hunting 
morning generally interrupted this return to domes- 
ticity. A series of frost, however, soon precluded 
the possibility of hunting altogether; and he was 
obliged perforce to derive many of his enjoyments 
froni his wife’s presence and conversation. This 
was a little helped at first by an attempt which be 
made to teach her to skate on the lake in the park, 
which was now frozen over. But they could not 


skate after dark, and there was still the long even- 
ing to be passed with no other variety than her 
ever-varying sources of entertainment. But pos- 
session seemed to have dulled his powers of discri- 
mination. Agnes, the ever playful, ever-varying 
Agnes in every thing except her affections, ap- 
peared to him all sameness ; and the crude, dull, 
dry dissertations in a newspaper were frequently 
preferred to the sweetness of her music and the 
brilliancy of her conversation. 

The perusal of the newspaper brought London 
and all its pursuits to his mind ; he began to won 
der what such and such people were doing, who 
was winning and who losing ; what the odds were 
on the next St. Leger; and who would be the lead- 
ing women of ton the next season. In the discus- 
sion of these subjects he would become animated, 
and woi>}d entertain Agnes with a hundred j)ro- 
jects, which he talked of having once formed, but 
which of course were given up, now that he had 
become a married man. Unwilling to believe what 
she dreaded to .find true, Agnes would still tempt 
him among his tenantry ; still exert her powers of 
pleasing; and still play all that had ever been his 
favorite tungs. But all in vain. It became at 
length i^ossible for her any longer to doubt, that 
T re vor v® tired of the solitude and inaction to which 
he was condemned in the country. He slept away 
half the morning on the sofa ; was absent when 
she spoke to him ; no longer launched out in praises 
of the beautiful scenery which had given such a 
zest to their rides. 

Their tete-a-tete dinners became silent. Bumper 
after bumper could scarcely keep him awake ; and 
he half yawned even when the beautiful hand of 
Agnes was sweeping the strings of her harp, and 
her voice chanting the melodies in which he had 
hitherto found so much delight. 

He began to fancy that the air grew cold and 
bleak ; voted his country neighbors a bore ; talked 
of the opera and his clubs, and wondered what all 
the world were doing in town. He gave two or 
three hints about business and his banker; inquired 
frequently if Agnes did not long to see her sister 
and Lady Pomeroy ; wondered whether they did 
not wish for their presence in town , and in short, 
to use a vulgar phrase, “beat the bush” till Agnes 
too plainly perceived his drift. He was ashamed 
so soon openly to confess that all his enthusiasm 
for solitude and the country had so hastily vanished. 
His encomiums upon green trees, autumnal tints, 
delicious rambles, and domestic tete-a-ietes^ were 
too recent for him to disavow them. lie thought 
this would be too fickle even for him. But Agnes, 
with the keen eye of love, read it in his listless 
glance ; understood it in his faint praise of that 
which a little month since, had called forth en- 
thusiastic admiration ; and felt it in the absen.e of 
all that pleasure which used to be so apparent dur- 
ing the first weeks of their union 

She sighed to think it was so ; out ner aflfection 
found a thousand excuses for her husband in the 
activity and excitement of his former life. — She 
gave up her expectations of enjoying life with him 
alone, and of keeping all his society to herself, and 
even began to think she had been unjust and self- 
ish in ever having entertained them. 

In her own inclination for the continuance of 
the life they had been leading, she forgot that il 

C3) 


38 


THE ROUfi. 


was his own protestations that had led her to 
imagine that it was to continue ; or if she did now 
and then sigh over the recollection that he had 
made them, and breathe a wish that he had acted 
up to them, she repressed her sighs and her wishes 
within her own breast, and determined to do every 
thing that could contribute to her husband’s 
pleasure. 

Influenced by this determination, she entered 
the library with the intention of proposing a jour- 
ney to town, and was thinking how she could pre- 
vent his suspicion of the real cause of her proposal, 
when he met her at the door with an open letter 
in his hand. — 

“ Oh, my sweet Agnes,” exclaimed he, the most 
unluckly contretemps in the world. These men 
of business, they never will let one enjoy a peace- 
ful hour in the country ; they have no idea of the 
pleasures of solitude. Would you believe it, my 
love ! this letter is a mandate from my lawyer. It 
says that the title to the Dorsetshire estate requires 
immediate and personal attention, and it is of so 
much importance, that I fear — ” Agnes smiled— “yes 
indeed, love, I feor that I must tear myself away 
from these peaceful scenes — ” Agnes smiled again 
— “ where we have enjoyed so much haziness — ” 

“ And of which you were beginninjjto be so 
much tired,” interrupted Agnes. “ Nay, nay, my 
'frevor, don’t deny it,” said she putting her hand 
playfully on his lips, “it is but natural that a mind 
like yours should again wish for its usual activity; 
again wish for the pursuits which habit has ren- 
dered second nature.” 

'J'revor jirotested her society was all that he 
wished on earth; that her conversation was suffi- 
cient ; her music the only sweet sounds he wished 
to hear, But Agnes again stopped him by ex- 
claiming: “Oh, yes! all this js prettily spoken; 
but confess now, Charles, don’t you think you would 
enjoy my society better, and appreciate my music 
more justly, had you the opportunity of comparing 
it with that of others ?” 

She looked archly as she spoke, and Trevor’s 
consciousness suffused his brow and che^ with 
tliat slight glow of confusion, which in a woman 
would have been dignified with the title of a 
blush. 

A goodnatured shake of the head, an affectionate 
kiss, and a playful exclamation of “naughty boy,” 
set the whole matter to rights with him ; and from 
this moment every preparation was made to quit 
that place, in which a few short weeks since 
he had almost sworn that he could pass his life ; 
that place, within whose limits he had protested 
were contained all that he wished on this side of 
the grave ; and all that he had sworn was fame, 
fortune and happiness to him. 

The valet and lady’s maid were summoned to 
receive the orders for departure with pleasure, and 
they obeyed them with alacrity ; for they were 
also tired of the monotony of the country, and 
were beginning to think of the parson and the 
parish church by the way of making time pass a 
little more pleasantly : for valets and waiting-maids 
have the same inclinations with their masters and 
mistresses ; and green trees, and evening walks, 
and larks and nightingales, had begun to have 
their effect upon Watkins and Flounce, as well as 
^if>on their betters; when the ideas of a London 


second table, and the anticipation of meeting the 
whole tribe of London servants, gentlemen’s gen* 
tlemen and ladies’ waiting gentlewomen in the 
steward’s room in town, wdth all the et cetera of 
French wines and whist, and the scandalous chro- 
nicles of their masters’ and mistresses deeds and 
misdeeds put all their other thoughts to flight, and 
buried them in the portmanteau and trunks with 
which they were now occupied. 

’J'he imperial-crowned carriage was at length at 
the hall door. Comfortable cloaks were spread 
over the rumble-tumble, to protect the persons 
of Watkins and another man-servant. Flounce 
with another female servant, occupied a travelling 
chariot behind ; dickies and rumble-tumbles having 
been excepted in the articles of her engagement. 

Post-horses had been ordered from the first stage 
by the avant courier, who had written forward U) 
bespeak relays. Colfee was swallowed by Trevor; 
and in high spirits he gave his hand to Agnes, and 
placed her comfortably in the warm and well- 
appointed travelling-carriage : the rest of the house- 
hold, with the exception of the old housekeeper, 
were to travel by other conveyances to London. 

The signal was given ; smack went the w'hips 
and on went the horses at a pace of twelve miles 
an hour; but not so fast as Trevor’s imagination, 
which had already travelled to town, and was in- 
dulging in his clubs, his Opera-box, and his lounge 
up Bond street. He had already, in fancy, shaken 
hands with a hundred of his old acquaintance, who 
congratulated him on his re-appearance in the 
world, 

Agnes, on the contrary, as the carriage was 
whirled rapidly through the avenue of elms which 
had so impressed her on her first arrival, and as 
particular spots met her view, looked upon them 
with a deep feeling of regret, at parting from scenes 
which had been the witnesses of what she then 
deemed the happiest moments of her life. It was 
amidst them that she had first given way to the 
impulse of youthful affection. It was there that 
she had first seen the happiness of the husband 
beam in the face of her lovers 

Every spot was endeared by some tender re- 
collection, and was thus rendered sacred to her 
memory. 

The journey was thus shortened to them both 
by the thoughts in which they indulged. Hers 
were all of the past; his, all of the future. She 
lived upon memory ; he upon anticipation. 

Alas! at what ar^ early period of their union 
for such an affectionate mind and heart as that of 
Agnes, to find its best and dearest pleasure in the 
past instead of the future. 

Yet were we to analyze the minds of nine-tenths 
of the husbands and wives in the world, I am afraid 
this would be found to be the case w'ithin three 
months affer their marriage. 

About the end of the second day, they entered 
London just as the gas was illuminating the streets 
and bridges. Trevor hailed with delight the sight 
of the crowded and bustling streets ; stretched out 
his neck as the carriage rolled by the club-houses, 
and exhibited all the signs of returning animation; 
for he had really begun to feel as though the vital 
functions of his existence had been suspended 
during his short vegetation in the countr}^ ; and as 
they dashed out of Piccadilly into Park liane, io 


39 


THE ROUE. 


which a house had been taken for them, he inward- 
ly confessed that not all the magnificent scenery 
of Trevor Park, with its superb avenues,, romantic 
cliffs, and ocean view, could compete with the three 
or four acres of lilacs and evergreens with which 
a London square was ])lanted. 

Not so Agnes. As the carriage entered London, 
and the busy bustling world struck again her view, 
she felt as though she had been suddenly awaken- 
ed from some delicious dream, and that some de- 
mon whispered to her spirit — 

Awake! awake! and dream no more. 

The thundering knock which announced the ar- 
rival of the carriage at their own door, seemed the 
knell to the quiet pleasures she had promised her- 
self; and it was in vain that during dinner she tried 
to rally her spirits, so as in some measure to keep 
pace with those of Trevor, which were animated 
by every distant knock, and by every sound that 
told him he was in dear dear London. 

As soon as dinner was over, he became fidgetty 
and nervous; he moved about the room with impa- 
tience; and as Agnes arose and quitted the room, 
he said, he thought he should just take a turn to 
the club, and join her in the dressing-room. 

Agnes herself spent the evening in solitude: 
she had an indefinable presentinjent of evil, which 
she could not overcome ; and as she heard the door 
close upon Trevor, and listened to the rattling of 
his carriage wheels as they bore him from the 
house, her heart felt a void for which she could 
scarcely account. Her only appui seemed to have 
left her. Her greatest hope seemed to be failing 
her; and she unwillingly began to dread that the 
many romantic wishes she had indulged were 
doomed to meet with nothing but disappointment. 

Hour after hour rolled on. But still no Trevor; 
till at lengh really alarmed at his protracted ab- 
sence, she was on the point of sending his man 
to learn at what time he had ordered the carriage, 
when his knock at the door and his immediate 
presence quieted her fears for his safety ; and a 
kiss of welcome, aud a candid acknowledgment 
that his return to his club having been quite /e/cc? 
by his friends had caused his delay, procured a par- 
don for the first solitary evening he ha^ yet made 
her pass. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The next morning’s breakfast table conversation 
was filled by Trevor with projects of society and 
schemes for gaiety. He insisted that Agnes should 
immediately fix on her nights for quadrilles, con- 
certs, and assemblies, during the season. The visit- 
ing list was called for and augmented ; and the 
major-domo ordered to send out innumerable tick- 
ets in every direction to which the fashionable 
world extended, till poor Agnes was absolutely 
bewildered with the engagements and gaieties in 
progress; and looked through the long perspective 
of the season in vain for one evening of that domes- 
tic qu’et, the anticipation of which, a few weeks 


since, had formed their whole hopes of happi- 
ness. 

At length she ventured to stop the buoyancy 
of Trevor’s spirits, by a gentle allusion to the im- 
possibility of any thing like domestic comfort in the 
vortex of such arrangements as he proposed ; and 
to express her fears that in the midst of such gene- 
ral society, she should have very little, if any, time 
for the enjoyment of his own. 

“Oh, my love,” said Trevor, “ca viendra with 
the country in its proper time and season. Here 
one must do as others do, if we do not wish to be 
quizzed and laughed at. Yours, my love, are talents 
that are formed to create the admiration and envy 
of the world. I already, ‘ in my mhfd’s eye,’ see 
the men overpowered by the one, and the women 
dying of the other.” 

“ As to my talents, Charles, I value them only 
as they seem to amuse you. I want no other 
admiration than yours. A glance of approbation 
from your eyes would be dearer to me than the 
plaudits of the whole world ; and as to envy, 
1 have no ambition to excite it.” 

“ But then you know, my love, that as the 
Honorable Mrs. Trevor, who may be a Countess, 
you have a certain station in society to keep up, 
which — which — ” and he hesitated ; for he was 
really at a loss to find an excuse for the long 
series of dissipation which he had enumerated. 

“ I know I have, Charles,” said Agnes, affec- 
tionately ; “ and, believe me, I shall never forget 
it: but in keeping up this station in society, do 
not make me lament that I am so seldom to be 
Mrs. Trevor for yourself alone. For it was you, 
and not your station, that made me so ; and I 
declare to you, that should the title, which seems 
all at once to have such charms in your eyes, ever 
become you^, I should regret being addressed by 
any other name than that of Mrs. Trevor.” 

“ Thanks, thanks, my love, for your affection. 
It is gratifying, believe me — gratifying to my 
heart, and I feel your kindness to my soul ; and 
so, as I was saying, the Marquis of Townley says 
you will receive cards from the Marchioness — tor 
the 10th and 24th of February, the 12th and 
30th of March, and for six assemblies, distributed 
through May, June, and July.” 

A long list of other prospective engagements of 
the same nature were then enumerated. Boxes at 
the Opera and French play were to be secured. 
Her name was to be proposed at Almack’s ; till 
by the time that Lady Emily Trevor was an- 
nounced, who came to hear of the realization of 
all the romantic dreams of domestic happiness, in 
which her friend and sister had indulged, poor 
Agnes could hardly recollect that there were such 
words in the vocabulary ; so completely had the 
whirl of gaiety in which Trevor talked of living, 
banished them from her remembrance. All that 
Agnes could do was to asgent in silence ; thciugh 
her heart felt acutely that in all these arrange- 
ments, the dear thought of domesticity, upon which 
she had placed so many of her hopes of happiness, 
seemed to have been entirely forgotten. 

Trevor took the opportunity of Lady Emily’s 
arrival to start on his morning’s round. Bidding 
his sister a welcome and a good bye in the same 
kiss, with an “ au revoir man amie” to his wife, 
he quitted the room, leaving his friends to that 


40 


THE ROU^. 


delicious intercourse which the mutual narration of 
events which have occurred during a short separa- 
tion, between persons who love each other, always 
produces. 

All the letters of Agnes had glowed with the 
description of the happiness she was enjoying at 
Trevor Hall, They spoke the full accomplishment 
of her dearest wishes — the realization of her most 
sanguine expectations. Even the letter announcing 
this sudden change of their determination to pass 
the whole year in the country, had not even hinted 
that it wae not the perfect wish of her own heart, 
as well as that of Trevor. 

In repeating the pleasures and pursuits of their 
short sojourn in the country, Agnes again became 
animated ; but Lady Emily thought that she heard 
a sigh mingle with these descriptions ; and Agi>es 
did really experience that feeling of melancholy 
w hich pervades the mind and heart, when alluding 
to those pleasures that are passed away, instead of 
those which are to come. 

Agnes was, however, too generous to give a hint 
of this incipient feeling to her friend, and anxious 
to hear how she went on with Hartley she turned 
the conversation upon him. 

“ Oh,” said Ljffly Emily, “ the creature is just 
the same teasing mortal he ever was. Where I 
am, there the man is sure to be with that perpetually 
grave face, frowning at all my little flirtations and 
gaieties. I have dismissed him a hundred times 
by hints and inuendoes; but I might as well, and 
as wisely, throw snow against a stone wall, as 
hints at a man that will not understand them.” 

“ He stands his ground, though, I perceive, 
in spite of all the fine gentlemen by whom you 
are surrounded and addressed.” 

“ V/hy, yes, he does that certainly; but it is 
with much the same air that a two-and-twenty 
pounder would maintain its station against batteries 
of pop guns, or an English mastiff against a bevy of 
lap dogs. My other beaux let fly their light arrows 
in all directions; they dazzle my eyes in Jtheir 
flight, whirl round my head, but reach no further. 
Hut Hartley stands like a well trained engineer ; he 
reserves his fire for great occasions, and comes upon 
me with some cannon ball of a virtue, that — that — 
that—” 

“ Goes home to the heart, I presume you mean,” 
said Agnes, finishing the sentence for her friend. 

“ No, not exactly so, neither,” said Lady Emily. 
“ Reason is but a rough road to the heart. Though 
I begin to believe, that if once that path is discovered, 
it is the surest way to win it irrevocably. The 
man W’ho wins a woman’s heart through the eye 
or the ear alone, though he may make a more rapid 
progress at first, is not half so secure of its posses- 
sion as he who reaches it through the medium of 
her judgment and her understanding.” 

“ Spoken with the true wisdom of my friend and 
monitress Emily,” exclaimed Agnes; “you are in- 
deed all dull reality, without the slightest portion 
of sentiment and romance in your composition. 
Now, I — I am all the contrary;” and a sigh, so 
gentle that she scarcely felt it herself, stole from her 
bosom, as imagination recurred to that indefinable 
fear which is the first effect of some dreaded disap- 
pointment. 

“ Oh ! you are quite mistaken, my dear Agnes, 
in your estimate of my disposition. I am naturally 


as ardent and romantic as yourself ; and confess to 
you that there are many men by whom I have been 
addressed, who much more resemble my heau ideal 
of a lover, than poor Hartley. But a husband, 
Agnes, is for every-day wear, and not to be put on 
upon holydays alone, to glitter for a moment, and 
be laid by in one’s wardrobe till one wants to l>e 
brilliant again. A husband is for home consump- 
tion, and not for parade abroad. In short, a lover 
is what wit, and a husband what common senie 
is to us. The one may amuse us for a moment, 
but the other is of use to us/all our lives.” 

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Pomeroy now came in to 
pay their congtatulations to Agnes. They had 
flown to town with eagerness from the comparative 
solitude of the country, the very moment the eti- 
quette honey-moon of their marriage was passed. 
Amelia tired of the country, Henry maddened by 
her continued coldness. 

Amelia was still as beautiful as ever, and still as 
cold and ceremonious. Marriage had made no dif- 
ference in her, except the speedy adoption of the 
privilege of a matron to chaperon others, and to 
take precedence of single ladies. 

Henry appeared pale, though a hectic flush would 
now and then cross his forehead and cheeks. His 
features looked as though he were consuming bv 
some inward fire, which was confined to his own 
breast, and whose flames were driven back by some 
chilling influence the moment they attempted to 
break forth. Altogether, his appearance would 
not have been an unapt illustration of that lover 
who is said to have died of his passion for a 
statue. 

After the meeting of the sisters, conversation 
took a general turn : the opera and the singers — 
people of fashion and their parties — were freely 
canvassed; and Agnes soon found herselGinvolved 
in a round of engagements, which Amelia declared 
she could not avoid if she intended’ to live, accord- 
ing to her aunt’s idea, en regie. 

Lady Pomeroy’s entrance and subsequent con- 
versation did not at all diminish these engagements. 
She exclaimed, after any party had been named, 
“ Oh ! of course you must go there ;” and, “ Oh ! 
everybody will be there ;” and, “ You must not be 
out of that for the world ;” with such like all-pow 
erful reasons. At Trevor’s return, all these reasons 
were confirmed by his wishes, and Agnes, for the 
present, at any rate, was obliged to give up her own 
ideas and anticipations of domestic happiness : and 
she felt herself soon compelled to acknowledge that — 

The glittering dreams which pass before the mind, 

Are not by Heaven for prophecies designed. 

Nor by ethereal beings sent us down. 

But each one is creator of his own. 

The common course of things, under these circum- 
stances, led Agnes into a round of society, in which 
her rank, her talents, and her fortune, gave her a 
prominent situation. Trevor’s invitations were as in- 
discriminate as they were numerous, and her table 
was daily therefore covered with visiting tickets, 
and few people of fashion came to town, whose 
cards W'ere not immediately despatched to the Tre- 
I vors, among the “dear five hundred friends” who 
were to help to kill their time and fill their salooiw 
auring the winter, or rather during the season. 


THE ROHE 


41 


Though Trevor's in 'onstancy of disposition might 
have taken away from the first fervor of his passion, 
his vanity was yet gratified by the admiration 
which his wife every where excited; and as this 
gratification was of course increased the more she 
was in society, he urged her into a series of dissi- 
pation, entirely contrary to her own inclination and 
judgment. 

It is not, however, in the nature of a young 
heart not to derive pleasure from perceiving that it 
has the power of communicating it ; and Agnes 
found so much talent to patronise, and so many 
other outlets for the generous feelings of her nature 
in society, that in time she became reconciled to 
it, though her heart turned with regret to all her 
early anticipations of dornestic comfort ; but to them 
she still looked forward, when the close of the sea- 
son and fashion should again take them back to the 
seat of Trevor’s ancestors, whch she had so recently 
quitted with so much regret. She was now, how- 
ever, in the giddy whirl of fashion ; and its pursuit 
left no time for regrets of any sort. Party followed 
party, and engagement succeeded engagement so 
quickly, that her time was perpetually occupied, 
either in recovering from the fatigues of one or pre- 
paring for the gaieties of another. 

For some days the “ world of fashion” had been 
busy in anticipating the first splendid assembly of 
the Marchioness of Townley, whose cards had been 
issued for the opening of her mansion, with the 
new suit of rooms built by Nash, and furnished by 
Orchard. 

The town was full ; and nobody who had the 
least pretensions to knock at her doors, had omitted 
leaving their tickets, that their names might not 
be left out in the distribution of her cards. At the 
opera, for two or three nights preceding her assem- 
bly, the marchioness was actually besieged by the 
presentation of all the new pretenders to fashion, 
w'hich coming of age, to a fortune, or to any kind 
of notoriety had created. But she was a veteran, 
and had stood all these things these forty years, 
wdtheut having ever complained of fatigue : and she 
had been known to keep her enamel and her rouge 
intact for weeks together, when the height of the 
season and its occupations left her no time to make 
a new face 

This season, the wife of a great financier having 
opened a mansion in her own square, with the pro- 
fessed intention of rivalling her parties at home, as 
well as her influence at Almack’s, had infused 
into the aged marchioness more spirit and more 
extravagance than usual : and she determined to 
overpower the audacious attempt, and show the 
difference between the legitimate aristocracy of 
birth, and the plebeian attempts of a parvenue. 
For her ensuing entertainment, therefore, Gunter 
was ordered to do his possible , Every prepara- 
tion was made to render it the most splendid thing 
of the season ; and guests of a certain rank were 
canvassed with as much avidity to grace her saloon 
on the evening in question, as the marchioness was 
herself canvassed by guests of an inferior rank for 
her permission to be with the crowd, and see their 
names the next morning among the misters and 
mistresses who had filled her rooms. 

At length the night arrived ; and carriage after 
tarriage set down their superbly dressed inmates at 
the door of the Marchioness The names of these 


visiters echoed up the spacious staircase, repeated 
by a dozen different lake'ys. The Marchidhess her 
self sat on a damask satin sofa in the first anti- 
room to receive her guests, and smiled with self- 
satisfaction, as title after title was roared out by 
the servants; and more particularly as she was 
pretty sure that her rich rival lived almost within 
ear-shot of the high-sounding names that reverbe- 
rated through her hall and staircase. 

At length the company had nearly all arrived* 
The Marchioness had breathing time between the 
announcements — to receive the congratulations of 
her visitors on the splendor of her new apartments 
and furniture, and on the elegance of her assembly ; 
congratulations, w'hich, from many a female tongue, 
were uttered with all the bitterness of gall in their 
hearts, and all the sweetness of honey in their 
words. 

Agnes had arrived early with her friend and sis- 
ter-in-law Lady Emily, and had as usual drawn 
round her a conversational circle, which was gene- 
rally the resort of those who were considered 
among the literati and the wits of the day. In this 
circle she was the presiding genius, and though 
badinage was the order of the moment, but little 
scandal and less ill-nature could find their way into 
a conversation which was led by Agnes. It might 
almost be said, that the little circle over which she 
presided, had the same precious privilege as that 
attributed to Ireland, and that no venomous reptile 
could exist within its precincts. It was to this 
circle that the dramatist, the artist, and the poet, 
resorted, with the certainty of attention to their 
talents and opportunity for their exertion ; and 
though many an exclusive, as she passed by, would 
cast a disdainful look at the coterie of Agnes Tre- 
vor, because the aristocracy of talent was there ac- 
knowledged as well as the aristocracy of rank, there 
were none who more thoroughly enjoyed society 
than she did. She was indeed the very essence of 
enjoyment herself, and doubled her own pleasure by 
communicating it to those around her. In a circle 
of this sort too, where so many lived in imagina- 
tion, she often found her own romantic turn reflected 
in others; and this would often draw her from the 
contemplation of the more dull realities of life, 
which she began to feel were very far from being 
those which she had anticipated. 

Quadrilles and ecar/e-tables were now forming 
in different apartments. Elderly ladies cut for part- 
ners at whist, and young ladies fanned for them in 
quadrilles. The business of the evening, id est, 
flirtation among the young, a little more than flir- 
tation among the middle-aged, and gambling among 
the seniors commenced, Cholloner in one apart- 
ment and Weippart in another, played, waltzes and 
quaddlles alternately, and the whole world seemed 
occupied and in motion, excepting those persons 
denominated wall flowers who sat round the dif. 
ferent apartments motionless, looking like the gild- 
ed frame of an animated picture, or resembling the 
spectators at a cosmorama. 

The noise of the carriages had been stilled some 
time, and the deep oaths of the coachmen had 
subsided into the silence which betokened the pre- 
sence of the porter-pots, when the sudden rattle 
of wheels evidently rotatorying at a most furious 
rate was heard in the square ; and so conspicuous 
and overwhelming was the noise they made, tiiat 


4-2 


THE ROUE. 


the Babel-like conversaiion of the crowded rooms, 
and the shrill harmonicon of Challoner, were 
nearly drowned in the approach of the vehicle to 
the house. 

In a moment all the carriages in the square 
seemed to be set in motion — and with them the 
longues of their drivers. Tl^e newly arrived equi- 
j)agc appeared to have charged full gallop into the 
phalanx of chariots, coaches, vis-a~vis^ and cabrio- 
lets, surrounding the door of the Marchioness. No- 
thing was heard for a few moments but the slash- 
ing of whips, the trampling of tior.ses, and the 
oaths of the coachmen. All seemed confusion 
v;orse confounded — a confusion which was ex- 
j)lained by some who had taken a refuge from the 
heat of the apartments, and perhaps from the ob- 
servation of their occupiers in the balcony, stating 
that it was created by the sudden arrival of a 
bretchka, with four foaming horses, which was that 
moment discharging its tenant at the door. 

In a minute after, the name of Sir Robert Leslie 
was baw’led out by the porter in the hall. “Sir 
Robert Leslie,” repeated the servant on the first 
landing — and “ Sir Robert Leslie,” re-echoed the 
fellow at the door of the ante-room. 

Almost every one who heard the name, repeated 
it with exclamations of surprise. — “ Where did he 
come from?” “When did he arrive?” — “How 
K)ng has he been in England ?” were questions 
that each asked of the other, without expecting or 
receiving any answer. A few wondered at his again 
venturing into English society. Men who cared 
for their wives and daughters, felt a slight impres- 
sion of uneasiness in their minds as the name met 
their ears ; and the cheeks of many a lady from 
twenty-five to thirty, tingled with a conscious blush 
at the announcement of a name which they had too 
much reason to remember. 

Wonders as to his reception were beginning to 
creep into some of their minds. No time, however, 
was given for debate upon this point ; for the name 
was scarcely uttered by the last animated repeater 
of the Marchioness, before Sir Robert Leslie had 
bowed upon her hand — received her mechanical 
welcome — and passed into the inner apartments 
nodding, bowing, shaking hands, smiling away 
frowns, or frowning down appearances of anger, to 
the indignation of some, the amusement of others, 
and the astonishment of all. 

Sir Robert Leslie was precisely in person, what 
the French would call U7i bel homme. He was 
rather above the middle height, perfectly well made, 
with a countenance, the principal attention of which 

v/as its openness — an openness, however, which, on 
certain occasions, degenerated into an expression of 
daring recklessness, which spoke very plainly that 
fearlessness of consequences was one of his princi- 
pal characteristics. In his manners he was per- 
fectly easy and familiar with every body, without 
even being obtrusive. In his dress there was no- 
thing conspicuous, and yet there was that about it 
which made every body attempt an imitation, and 
attempt it unsuccessfully. The secret was, that his 
dress was precisely that which suited his person. 

If his demeanor could be called any thing, it was 
modest — without diffidence — and formed a remark- 
able contrast to the character which he so justly 
bore in the world. It was this which surprised 
every body, and threw every body off their guard. 


-- r TB 

At a first introduction, and without some positive 
knowledge of facts, nobody, from his quiet unobtru- 
sive manner, his sterling good sense on the subjects 
on which he conversed, the innocent play of his 
imagination, and the correct tenor of his expres- 
sions and general conversation, could possibly con- 
ceive Leslie to be the gay, daring, reckless, and 
voluptuous libertine that he w^as. His intimate 
friend and associate, Frederick Villars, was wont to 
call him the “ most impudent man alive, with the 
most modest demeanor in the world and often said, 
that he envied him more for this appearance of mo- 
desty, than for any other of the many high qualifi- 
cationsi, he possessed, and swore that the principal 
part of the bonnes fortunes with the fair, was 
more owing to this than to that dash and impu- 
dence to which they were too apt to be attributed. 

From the period of the newspaper paragraphs, 
which the reader will recollect created so much 
discussion in Mrs. Dashington’s establishment, 
when our hero figured away under the initials of 

Sir R— - L e, and was designated by the 

names of the “ gay Lothario,” the “ gallant Colo- 
nel,” the favored lover,” and all those other epi- 
thets with which newspaper morality chooses to 
decorate “ adulterers,” Sir Robert Leslie had re- 
sided, or rather travelled on the Continent. Little 
was known of him in England, excepting that his 
character for gallantry was quite as conspicuous in 
the circles of Paris, Rome, Florence and Naples, 
as it had been in those of London. Rumor said, 
that he had been called several times to the field to 
answer for misdemeanors of the same nature ; 
and it was known that in one instance he had 
absented himself from the more populous towns, 
and had been supposed to be residing with some 
beautiful recluse, in the seclusion of some Italian 
villa, near the Lago Maggiore. 

All was, however, but rumor ; nothing was cer- 
tainly known of him, excepting by his friend Vil- 
lars, who was his Pylades, his Pythias, his second 
self. 

The same uncertainty attended the fate of the 
unfortunate lady who had accompanied him from 
England. There were sad reports of desertion, 
of remorse, of repentance, and of death. Rumor 
had even hinted at self-destruction ; but there was 
no certainty. She Lad thrown herself out of the 
pale of society. She had been too beautiful to be 
easily forgiven. Virtuous women could not sully 
their lips by inquiries after a frail fair one, who had 
outshone them ; time buried her good and amiable 
qualities in oblivion, and left nothing but the me- 
mory of her frailty for the malice of her friends to 
descant upon. 

But amid all the reports which had gone forth 
on the hroad pinions of rumor, that she had loved 
again, had never been whispered. Malice therefore 
being silent on this point, she was supposed dead. 

As the name of Sir Robert Leslie struck upon 
the ear of Agnes, it recalled to her memory the 
paragraphs, and the account of the duel which haa 
at the time made so great an impression upon her 
mind ; and her decided dislike of the character he 
bore, was not unmixed with curiosity to sec a man 
of whom the world had said so much, and of 
whom this newspajier history had made her think 
a great deal, in spite of herself. She was not, 
however, so placed that she could see him at hia 


43 


THE R0U£. 


Bntrance, and nobody pointed him out afterward. 
She and Lady Emily exchanged some of their 
school reminiscences on the subject, and it was 
dropped in the pursuit of the general conversa- 
tion. 

To the numerous inquiries of where he came 
from, Leslie said “ From Florence,” with precisely 
the same tone that he would have said from 
Berkeley Square. And to the further interroga- 
tory of when did he arrive, he replied, with the 
same sang froid, that he was only that moment 
from Italy, and seeing the lights and the carriages, 
the Marchioness’s door was the first at which he 
had alighted ; he had not even been to his own 
house. With the silly multitude this had its effect, 
and Leslie calculated upon it; and as to the Mar- 
ciiioness, she imagined that a man of the calibre 
®f Sir Robert Leslie having been actually set down 
at her party fresh from Florence, would give it 
eclats This, in her eyes, w’as a sufficient atone- 
ment for all his misdeeds. 

The Marchioness, therefore, patronised him; the 
world lollowed her example; and Sir Robert Leslie 
was again, as firmly established in society, as 
though he had never violated the sacred ties of hos- 
pitality and friendship; as though he had never 
led any woman into error, and left her to destruc- 
tion and despair. 

'Fhere was one there though w'ho met his saluta- 
tion with a haughty eye ; and whose heart seemed 
to swell with indignation as he approached the 
place where he stood. This was the lady’s brother, 
who had called him out upon the occasion ; and 
who felt that a mere shot of etiquette had not ap- 
peased his vengeance for the loss of a sister’s virtue, 
or for a blemish upon the fair fame of an honorable 
family. But the ceremonials of society deemed that 
he must be satisfied ; and he could only lament it in 
silence, and brood over his resentment in secret. 
Leslie, however, knew the opinion of the world 
was with him in the affair of the duel, and was 
careless how his salutation was received ; though he 
was careful that it should show, that not a jot of 
resentment was harbored on his own part. 

The buz of Leslie’s entrance, and the wonders 
wdiich his arrival created, had soon subsided ; and 
the general conversation of the circle around Agnes 
was resumed. As usual, poetry was the subject 
they were discussing; and Agnes was encouraging 
an argument between a celebrated admirer and 
eulogiser of Shakspeare, and a French petit rnaitrc 
attached to the F rench embassy, who was shrugging 
his shoulders at Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and 
Juliet, and attempting to ridicule Shakspeare, while 
he trumpeted forth the praises of Racine and 
Corneille. 

“ Shakspeare’s court, Sir,” replied a stranger ap- 
proaching, was human nature. You wonder he 
could know how kings thought and felt — He dived 
into the heart of man ; and the hearts of monarchs 
are huinan, subject to human passions, to human 
virtues, and to human frailties. By drawing all his 
illustrations from the heart, he spoke to its feel- 
ings. as well as to the imagination. Nature is the 
prolific source of the poet, and Shakspeare never 
swerved from her laws.” 

The stranger’s eyes at this moment encountered 
those of Agnes, which gave him a glance of appro- 
bation ; and as he moved on and mingled with the 


crowd, she wondered who he was, and felt surprised 
that a man who was evidently of the elite- of so- 
ciety, should be unknown both to herself and Lady 
Emily, who had been equally amused with the few 
observations with which the stranger had put down 
the pertinacious Frenchman. 

There had been something about the gaze of 
this stranger, and in the tone of his voice, that had 
interested Agnes, and she was on the point of .send- 
ing some one to enquire his name, when she again 
heard his voice exclaiming, “ My dear Trevor, how 
do you do]” which was immediately succeeded by 
a joyful exclamation on the part of Trevor ; who, 
hurrying him through the crowd, saying, “ Come, I 
must introduce you to Mrs. 7'revor,” broke into her 
circle, and presented the stranger as “ Sir Robert 
Leslie.” 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Leslie’s establishment was si Men monte., and 
the whole of his domestics so well trained, that bv 
the time of his arrival in Audley Square from tfe 
Marchioness’s party, his whole suite of apartments 
were ready to receive him ; and the next morn- 
ing found him at home” in his library, with 
every thing about him precisely the same as though 
he had never quitted his house. Leslie had many 
of the true ideas of an English gentleman, and 
would never have thought of going abroad to spend 
his income among foreigners, while he kept no 
establishment at home. Leslie Hall, therefore, ia 
Leicestershire, and the town-house in Audley 
Square, were both kept with competent establish- 
ments, and sonletimes formed the residence of one 
or other of the different branches of his family 
during his absence. 

The library in which he now lounged over his 
chocolate was his favorite apartment of a very 
superb suite of rooms, more peculiarly appropriated 
to himself and his private pleasures. Its windows 
opened into the garden, and it was divided into 
recesses and compartments, each devoted to a par- 
ticular subject of literature, which was designated 
by some cast from the antique, or by the statue of 
some modern artist, where the antique did not 
furnish an apt illustration. Leslie was a patron 
of the arts, because their contemplation gave him 
pleasure : he was an encourager of talent, because 
its exertion afforded him entertainment; and as 
pleasure was the only thing he lived for, and us 
his passions were his masters, not to say his 
tyrants, every thing that could in any way tend to 
the accomplishment of the one, or the gratification 
of the other, became the object of his attention. 

Leslie swallowed his chocolate, reading note 
after note as they came pouring in from everybody 
who knew of his arrival: many of these were 
folded in those curious and quaint shapes, and 
written upon those tinted papers which females 
generally choose for their billets, Some of them 
excited smiles of pity, some of contempt, and some 
elicited a pshaw ! but most of them were consigned 
to the flames; some were laid carefully by for his 
own pro]<er answer, and others were handed over 


44 


THE ROUfi. 


to La Tour, who well knew the part he was to 
play with their writers. 

As card after card arrived, Leslie, who had 
possessed some slight forebodings as to his recep- 
tion in London, became easier, and indulging him- 
self in sundry sneering reflections upon the caprices 
of what was called the world, gave himself up to 
his usual hearty contempt for public opinion. 

“ Now here,” said he, “ had I, like a poltroon, 
sneaked and begged my way back into society, by 
aping repentance, why they would have kicked me 
out of it; but by braving them and showing that 
I do not care a straw for them, I am courted from 
all quarters ; and it is for the opinions of such as 
these, that men make life a misery instead of a 
delight, by curbing those passions which were 
bestowed upon us by a bounteous nature for our 
enjoyment. Here, La Tour, answer these cards 
according to your own fancy ; you may dine me 
where you please ; quadrille me where you please ; 

I give you a carte blanche^ with one exception, and 
that is, Trevor House ; whenever a card comes 
from that quarter, let no engagement intervene to 
prevent my accepting it ; nay, put ofT every other 
for any invitation from Trevor.” 

“ Trevor, Monsieur ! Celui qui nous a fait rire 
tant a Napoli 1 ” 

“ Yes, Sir, Trevor. Pourquoi non !” 

“ Oh rien, Monsieur ; mais — ” 

“ Je n’aurai point de mais, Les Trovers — ” 

“ Les Trevors !” with emphasis on the Les. 

“ Oui ; il est marie.” 

“ Et Madame 1” 

“ Belle comme un ange !” 

“ Ha ’ ha ! C’est bien different. Je vous de- 
mande bien pardon and Latour’s shoulders paid 
a visit to the back of his head, while he muttered in 
a kind of sotto voce. “Le pauvre monsieur, c^est 
bien dt)mmage the library door opened, and Mr. 
Trevor was announced, 

“ Trevor, my dear fellow, you are welcome, and 
thrice welcome, since you are the first who have 
welcomed me to England in my own house. This 
is liberal of you, too. I was afraid that, as a mar- 
ried man, you might be changed, turned into a 
mere domestic utensil, of no other use than to stir 
the fire, carry a fan, with permission to gad just the 
length of your wife’s apron string.” 

“ Changed, Leslie 1 Not a jot ; you and Villars 
w’ill find me just the same fellow you did in 
Naples (another visit from La Tour’s shoulders to 
his head) ready to follow where you and he will 
lead — as I have often done before. Ah, La Tour, 
how do ?” 

“^Nay, nay, Trevor, you have given up your 
liberty — fettered yourself with voluntary chains — 
quitted our glorious society of free knights, and are 
only fit for the menage, or the manege, which is 
sometimes much the same thing. 

“Oh, I beg your pardon; you don’t know Mrs. 
Trevor ; she is any thing but exigeante, I assure 
you, and permits me to frequent my clubs — give 
my bachelors dinners — and to be a gar^on parfait, 
with the addition of a domus, which I wdll say is 
never rendered any thing but duke, and I am sure 
you will find it so whenever you choose to make it 
yours” — another shrug from La Tour. 

“ Why, Trevor, ycu will give even me an incli- 
nation for matrimony, if you go on at this rate ; 


you seem employed as a decoy duck, and sent out 
on the wing to entrap others into the snare which 
sits so easily and gracefully upon yourself, because 
you are used to it.” 

“ Ha, Leslie, you are, at any rate, still the same, 

I see; but let me warn you, my dear fellow, don’t 
debiier any of these free principles before Mrs. 
Trevor. She has received and welcomed all my 
friends as though they were her own ; to be knowm 
and liked by her husband is a passport to her 
favor, and I would not have you excluded. I 
would have you well with her, (La Tour shrugged 
his shoulders again) though that cursed affair of 
the little countess has cast a stigma upon you, 
which it will require all your good behaviour to get 
over, for she has some d — d odd old-fashioned 
notions upon these points ; however, you made a 
good beginning last night ; your defence of li«r 
favorite Shakspeare pleased her ; and she said you 
said something about nature that could not come 
from a bad heart.” 

At this moment a voice was beared coming 
through the anti-rooms, “ Oh up stairs, in the 
library-room is he ? — never mind — won’t trouble 
you, my fine fellow — could find my way blindfold — ” 

“ That perpetual jackall to other people’s desires, 
jy Oyley : have you given him any commission 1” 

“ No,” said Leslie, “ you are the first person I 
have seen ; but I have no doubt he is come in 
search of me ; for he is really a much greater bore 
from his civility than other people are by the con- 
trary ; now adieu to the sound of any other per- 
son’s voice than his own.” Open flew the door, 
and in came D’Oyley. 

“ Ah, Sir Robert, my dear Sir Robert, welcome, 
thrice welcome to England and London, for what 
could England do without London 1 Ha, La Tour, 
what, with your master still- — a chair — a chair — 
wheugh !” 

“Why, D’Oyley, what’s the matter]” asked 
Trevor. 

“Matter! why that malicious devil Lady Betty 
Lascelles has given me a trot two miles after a fan 
she never lost; and her sister insisted upon my 
going to the observatory at the top of the house to 
see what sort of a day it was.” 

“Ha! ha! ha! with both of which desires you 
complied !” 

“ To be sure: how can one refuse to be civil] 
and if there is anything I do understand, it is civili- 
ty. By the by, Sir Robert, do you remember 
giving me a commission the day before you quitted 
England] — beg pardon for the unpleasant allusion 
— but you gave me a commission to buy a particu- 
lar edition of Rousseau]” 

“ Upon my word, D’Oyley, I cannot precisely 
recollect.” 

“ Oh but you did ! It was just five years ago 
last March. Well, as, luck would have it, in my 
way here this morning I found it at Evans’s, stuck 
in between the ‘Rights of Women’ and the ‘ Age 
of Reason,’ decorated w-ith a splendid binding, 
amidst a parcel of unbound lumber on morality 
and divinky. It seemed mightily ashamed of the 
dulness of its company ; so I ordered the bookseller 
to send it to you, and place it to your account for 
the year eighteen hundred and twenty-eight. It 
is the very best edition ; for if there is anything 1 
do understand, it is books.” 


THE ROUli:. 


45 


“ Oh, r remeniher ; it was just at the time I was 
laying siege to a little heart that doted upon sen- 
timentality, and I wished to engage Rousseau as an 
aide-de-camp.” 

“ Jj^apper and Miner you mean, baronet : doesn’t 
he Trevor 1” interrupted D’Oyley. “Oh! but I 
forgot you are a married man, and don’t understand 
these things. Ah, Trevor! you have a charming 
wife. Do you know Mrs. T., Sir Robert? if not, 
ril introduce you. But I see you are adonising; 
let me sent you a little of my kuile a la rose 
hlanche^ ’tis a distillation of my own; beats Bayley 
and Blew out of the field; gives a brilliant gloss 
to the moustache, and distributes a delicious per- 
fume through the surrounding atmosphere. If 
there is anything on earth I do understand, it is 
perfumery.” 

“ Thank ye, D’Oyley ; but you know I make no 
toilet,” said Leslie, as his valet adjusted his stock. 

“ No toilet ?” exclaimed D’Oyley ; “ Come, that 
is good, isn’t it, Trevor 1 when all the world knows 
you are the most indefatigable laborer in the vine- 
yard of libertinism that any romance-writing lady 
of the nineteenth century ever described or thought 
of in the utmost luxuriance of her imagination.” 

“You flatter me.” La Tour, who continued 
writing the cards at a distant table, again shrugged 
his shoulders. 

“No, honor! you may believe me ; mayn’t he, 
Trevor?” 

“You are mistalcen ; indeed you are,” said Leslie. 
« I take every thing calmly; I may throw the net, 
but I never, never bait. The fish always swim in- 
to the meshes of their own accord.” 

“ Les pauvres petits poissons !” murmured La 
Tour. 

“ Well, how the devil you manage it I cannot 
tell,” said D’Oyley. — “ Here I fag for the women 
from morning till night, and from night till morn- 
ing. If they wanted a pattern of a Chinese lady’s 
slipper, or a mandarin’s head-dress, a pound of 
unadulterated green tea, or any other article of 
curiosity and scarcity, I believe I should ride post 
to Canton to procure it. If their caprice wished 
for the feather of an Indian peacock, I dare say I 
should make a voyage to Hindostan to pluck it 
from his tail. I would run from here to Finsbury 
Square to pick up a lady’s reticule, while I believe 
you would not cross the way to pick up the lady 
herself. Yet are you adored by the whole sex, 
while |,‘oor I am thought nothing of.” 

“ My dear D’Oyley, you don’t understand the 
sex.” 

“ Not understand them ! come, that’s good, isn’t 
ft, Trevor? I that have been in love with every 
celebrated beauty for the last ten y^ars ; I that 
have danced with dowagers, and check- mated their 
grand-daughters ; not understand them ! when if 
tliere is anything I do understand, it is women ; 
my dear baronet, I’ve studied them.” 

“ Yes, D’Oyley, as the butterfly studies botany ; 
just flap{)ing your wings upon them en passant, so 
that you never tas^te the sweets of any of them. 
Do you expect to ascertain the depth of the ocean 
by skimming its surface? No, no! your know- 
ledge of woman is much like that of the would-be 
philosopher, who has dipped into all the sciences 
without initiation into any of them. His mathe- 
matic^s are confounded by his metaphysics, his 


metaphysics subverted by his mechanics, and his 
mechanics blown to the devil by his chemistry.” 

“ Mr. Hartley coming up. Sir Robert.” 

“ My cousin Hartley in town ? then I must pre- 
pare for a grave face.” 

“And I too,” said Trevor. “ He is the matter- 
of-fact lover of my sister Emily; so to avoid it att 
revoir, you’ll be at White’s, or I shall meet you in 
the Park, or somewhere, at present, any where to 
avoid a lecture.” And away went Trevor. 

“ Which I,” exclaimed Leslie, know full well 
how to receive, as harmless as though I were cover- 
ed with the shield of Achilles. Hartley, my dear 
fellow, what heard of my arrival, and come to 
welcome me with a lecture?” 

“No, cousin Leslie. If the lectures which your 
owm conscience must have read to you have failed 
of their effect, my arguments must of course fall 
powerless to the ground.” 

“ Well, then, pray believe that my conscience 
has done the duty of all consciences, and it will 
save us both a vast deal of trouble,” said Leslie. 

“ Oh, a vast deal !” exclaimed D’Oyley. “ Con 
science is very impertinent, and every thing im- 
pertinent ought to be decidedly cut; and if there 
is any thing I do understand, it is cutting — 
from a card paper pattern, to one’s best friend.” 

“Aye, Mr. D’Oyley, but mind that conscience 
does not cut in return.” 

“ But what constellation,” said Leslie, “ my 
dear Hartley, has had sufficient attraction to draw 
you from your rustic retirement? Ever since we 
quitted Christ Church, I have buried you in logic 
and philosophy, and expected to hear my next in- 
telligence of you in the general reward of all great 
geniuses and profound students, a Greek epitaph, 
with a few Roman letters at the end of it. 

“ Quite appropriate ; an epitaph in a dead lan- 
guage, which I shall be very happy to translate 
for the benefit of the unlearned and the ladies; for 
if there is any thing on earth I do understand, it is 
the dead languages. 

“ No, no, Leslie ! philosophy has not been my 
pursuit, I assure you ; nature has made me the 
simplest of her children, and in nature alone have 
I found sufficient to admire and enough to 
please.” 

“ Nature ! why, cousin, you are a perfect epicure 
in pleasure. Nature, too, is my pursuit.” 

“ Egad baronet, you are right,” said D’Oyley. 
“But Hartley pursues her in trees and turnips, 
while you follow her in the delightful form of 
woman.” 

“ True, D’Oyley, but unfortunately nature is not 
more disfigured by the shears which clip a yew 
tree into the form a peacock, in the leaden Venus 
which decorates a citizen’s garden^ or in tlie 
mathematical figures of a Dutch plantation, than 
in the affected sensibility, the rouged cheek, the 
enamelled lip, the pencilled eyebrow, gigot sleeves, 
and padded back, of a modern fine lady a Ixi 
Frajicaise.^* 

“ Egad, right again, exclaimed D’Oyley ; woman 
is the most unnatural piece of nature in the 
world.” 

“ There, Mr. D’Oyley, you are wrong,” said 
Hartley ; “ on woman nature has originally be- 
stowed her choicest gifts. For if they would but 
follow her dictates, where would she shine with 


46 


THE ROUE. 


more effect ('an the suii, sparkling upon the 
clearest stream, yield more lustre than the liquid 
eye of a beautiful woman, which, like the tranquil 
wave, seems to catch its azure tint from the heavens 
themselves ? Can any flowers give such pleasure 
to the botanist as those which blossom in the gar- 
den of her cheeks'!” 

“ Egad, Hartley, quite poetical,” exclaimed 
D Oyley. 

“ And quite as romantic,” added Leslie. 

“ Well, cousin Leslie, you know we always 
differed in these points. Like the bee, you could 
always leave the flower whose honey you had 
tasted, to wither in the evening’s blast, while you 
sought the same repast in another, that opened 
its fresh blossoms in the sunshine of the morn- 
ing.’' 

“ Oh, my dear coz, I have all the arguments 
of the moral philosoixhers against my .system by 
heart.” 

“ Or, rather, by rote,” said Hartley. 

“ Look round my library ; there they are, al-l 
ranged in rows ; very good for show, but of little 
use in practice.” 

“ Ethics, literally laid upon the shelf, I declare,” 
observed D’Oyley. 

“ Yes, there they are,” continued Leslie; “and 
observe, all in good company. Venus pointing to 
heaven from the tops of my folios on divinity, be- 
cause they both professed to lead to the same 
place. Bacchus presses his Tuscan grape over my 
morals — ” 

“ That it may no longer prove a dry subject,” 
interrupted D’Oyley ; “ well, if there is any thing 
I do understand it is repartee.” 

“ Iris presides over my metaphysics, because she 
is always in the clouds, and seems to ride upon a 
tangent; Momus puts Melpomene and Thalia out 
of countenance over the drama, to show the triumph 
of farce over wit and feeling; Cupid sits sharpening 
his arrows over my poetry ; while the Graces are 
for once emblematical of gratitude, by supporting 
Lord Chesterfield, to whom they were so infinitely 
indebted for their introduction to high life.” 

‘‘ Ha ! ha ! ha ! a most judicious arrangement, 
truly; and quite worthy of the baronet, isn’t it, 
Hartley 1 ” 

“ Oh, quite ! but by their splendid bindings, you 
have attended to their outsides, however you may 
have neglected their contents.” 

“ Oh ! my dear cousin,” said Leslie, “ inspect 
them, and you’ll find their outsides quite emble- 
matical of the pages within. My stoical philoso- 
phers I bind in Russia, to depict their frigidity — ” 

“ Or rather,” said D’Oyley, “ to show that they 
are banished to Siberia — ” 

“ My ancient poets I case in classic vellum — ” 

“And your moderns — ” 

“I hang a calfskin on their recreant backs — 
while Ovid, Catullus, Secundus, and Little — you 
will find in sheets, 

‘ Loose, unattired, warm, and full of wishes.’ ” 

“ Aye, Sir Robert, I see it is with you as with all 
of us. Woman is indeed the pole-star of our at- 
tractions — the goddess of our adoration. — Hartley, 
give me a pinch of snuff. — Good, very good ; if 
there is any thing I do understand, it is snuff.” 


“ Well, for my part,” said Hartley, “ I love the 
sex; but neither w'ith your freedom, 8 ir Robert, nor 
with the devotion of Mr. D’Oyley. I look upon 
woman as sent to ameliorate the many evils which 
cross even the most prosperous paths — as calculated, 
when their talents are neither flattered nor perverted, 
to constitute the truest happiness our nature is 
capable of enjoying.” 

“ Oh !” exclaimed Leslie, “ as to that for which 
they were intended, they have wandered so far 
from the path, that their original destination is 
scarcely to be discerned on the map of feniale un- 
derstanding; all I know is — they are my delight^ — 
and I inquire no further.” 

“But rest contented,” rejoined Hartley, “ wdth 
the destruction of the object which contributes to 
your pleasure, as the worm exists upon the rose it 
destroys.” 

“ But how the devil do you contrive to please the 
women as you do'!” asked D’Oyley. 

“ How do you think, D’Oyley ?” 

“ Why, by being civil and obliging.” 

“ No such thing,” said Leslie; “your civil and 
obliging persons are the most annoying things in | 
the world.” A shrug from the shoulders of Mon- ; 
sieur La Tour. — “How do you think, Hartley'!” 

“ Perhaps,” said .Heartley, “ by praising the 
qualities they possess,which deserve praise.” 

“ Wrong again,” pursued Leslie. “ It w’ould be 
too much labor to find them out — so I e’en praise 
them for qualities they do not possess — discover 
charms which nobody has yet though of in their 
persons ; and sentiments they never dreamt of in 
their minds. And like the world, who quit the 
beaten paths of knowui truths, to read with avidity 
fictitious accounts of wonderful discoveries; — so will 
woman, lovely woman, delight in the lie, and love 
the liar ; 

‘ Hug the offender and forgive the offence.’ ” 

“ But do 70U never poetise them '! ” asked 
D’Oyley. 

“No, indeed; sighs and sonnets may, perhaps, 
do for a pretty boarding-school Miss in her teens, 
whose whole education consists in just enough 
French and Italian to read warm novels with the 
help of a translation, to which they always refer 
when their ignorance of the original prevents their 
arrival at the denouement so speedily as they may 
wish; and whose musical knowledge enables her 
finger to play at leap-frog through an accompany 
ment on the harp or piano, just to say she has a 
soul for music.” 

Hartley here could not help joining in the laugl\, 
while Leslie continued : “ As to your country lailies, 
whose sole stock of lilterature never reached 1*0- 
yond the Spectator or the 'Patler, who have learn- 
ed to be virtuous from Richardson’s Pamela, aiul 
studied the arts of men from Clarissa Harlowo — 
these I leave to you, D’Oyley, and to you, cousin 
Hartley.” 

“ Upon my soul, we are infinitely ooliged, my 
dear Baronet!” exclaimed D’Oyley. 

“ But gentlemen, good morning — my return has 
of course involved me in a multiplicity of business. 

— D’Oyley, I shall meet you at White’s; and in 
the mean time, perhaps, you will drop in at Tatter 
sal’s or Morris’s and look me out a fine hackney 
for the parks.” 


THE ROU^. 


47 


“ With the greatest pleasure, Baronet ; for if 
there is any thing I do understand, it is horseflesh 
and away tripped D’Oyley, delighted at having 
any thing to do for any body ; but more particu- 
larly for Sir Robert Leslie, who he already per- 
ceived was to be again a feature in society. 

“ Hartley, I suppose I shall meet you at Trevor’s 
dinner, as Lady Emily is there.” 

“ Do you dine at Trevor’s 1” inquired Hartley, 
earnestly. 

La Tour looked up from his occupation, and his 
eye encountered that of his master, as he said with 
nonchalance — 

“ To be sure I do ; we met on the continent, and 
I found him such a pleasant fellow, that I am anx- 
ious to cultivate his acquaintance in England.” 
Again his eyes were met by those of La Tour, 
whose shoulders w’ere again paying their accus- 
tomed visit to his head. Hartley took his leave. 

Leslie finished an air from Giovanni, and depart- 
ed for his morning’s stroll. 

At eight he was at Trevor House, and evidently 
felt by the reserve with which he was received by 
Agnes and Lady Emily, that there was a prejudice 
against him in the minds of both those ladies. 

He affected not to observe it; and as the dinner 
advanced, and his conversation turned on subjects 
connected with litterature and the arts — and he 
descanted freely, yet modestly, on music — and 
led the way to a dissertation on the human 
heart, its passions, its frailties, and the imperfections 
of our nature, the character of the man became 
gradually forgotten ; and even Hartley began to 
tliink that Leslie was no longer the libertine he had 
formerly been. 

From these subjects he passed to poetry and ro- 
mance — discussed their influence on the imagina- 
tion, and found an apology in violence of feeling 
and in a romantic disposition for many of the errors 
of human nature. At every sentence that either 
himself or any one else uttered that could possibly 
bear upon that scene of his life which was too well 
known to be denied, a sudden glow wmuld appear 
to overspread his countenance, his voice would fal- 
ter, a painful recollection and an internal regret 
seemed to overpower him, and the recovery of his 
self-possession appeared the effect of some strong 
effort of the mind; and thus he proceeded, till both 
Agnes and Lady Emily were almost persuaded the 
only crime they knew him to be guilty of had been 
the result of some sudden and violent passion, 
rather than of premeditation, and began to think 
the general character they heard of Leslie, to be 
devoid of foundation, and arising more from scandal 
than truth. 

In conversations of this kind the effect Leslie 
wished to produce was greatly assisted by that 
openness of countenance and almost carelessness of 
manner that seemed to set hypocrisy at defiance. 
His eye met those of the person he was speaking 
to with the full gaze of conscious honesty ; and 
like *hat of many of his caste, it never had any 
peculiar expression when he was addressing even 
the woman he had determined to make his victim. 
Yet a close observer might, in the midst of his ap- 
parent openness, have discovered a sinister expres- 
sion, almost imperceptible, and might perceive at 
intervals his gaze fixed upon some female form as 
though he were measuring its fair proportions, and 


calculating upon the pleasures which its possession 
might be supposed to bestow. 

During this dinner, and the evening which suc- 
ceeded — for Mrs. Trevor had a select concert and 
supper in the evening — Leslie contrived to oblite- 
rate many of the prejudices against him. 

Agnes was delighted with the boldness of his 
opinions — with their difference from those which 
are so servilely followed by others — and by the wit 
which he satirised the follies — the respect with 
which he spoke of the virtues of the age. His 
powers of desciiption were great; and as he de- 
scribed the various scenes through which he had 
passed, she could almost imagine she was herself 
wandering over the- Alps, winning her way up the 
Pyrenees, or gazing upon the calm skies and olive- 
covered plains of Italy. There was scarcely a part 
of his conversation that did not strike some chord 
of unison in the mind of Agnes. The fact was, 
that Leslie had early perceived her romantic dispo- 
sition, and he dressed his conversation accordingly 

Lady Emily was more cautious in admitting im- 
pressions in his favor; but yet could not refuse 
him her meed of admiration, and her pity for the 
remorse, which she might suppose, from his man- 
ner, that he still suffered for his crime. As to Tre- 
vor, he was delighted that one whom he was proud 
to call his friend had overcome the prejudices, 
which he was afraid his wife would have imbibed 
against him, and saw no farther than tho pleasure 
which he had always derived in his society; and 
even Hartley, who had known him the most reck- 
less boy at Eton, and the most licentious gentleman- 
commoner of Christchurch, was almost deceived 
into a belief that he had formed a wrong estimate 
of his heart. 




CHAPTER XX. 

Leslie was one of those anomalies in human 
nature that there was no studying. His sometimes 
apparent effeminacy, and almost petit-maitre 
manners, were completely counteracted by his dar- 
ing bravery. 

His affectation of ignorance was contradicted by 
a conversation on all subjects, which showed at least 
a superficial knowledge of every thing he touched 
upon ; and w'here his imagination could work, it 
supplied the place of learning and of memory. 

The accusation of an unfeeling disposition and in- 
sensibility seemed almost impossible to be just, where 
the greatest sins had arisen from violence of passion, 
of which nothing had been suffered to impede the 
gratification. But half these sins were known to 
the world, and those only so far as their pursuit and 
successful termination. The succeeding cold-heart- 
edness, the subsequent desertion of his victims, the 
something worse that was whispered, remained un- 
told ; and like the gay butterfly, he was still the 
admired of all admirers,” — 

“ The glass of fashion and the mould of form,” 

in which all men dressed themselves — from whom 
all men modeled themselves — and with which wo- 


48 


THE ROUE. 


men played till they discovered the sting only by 
its effects. 

The mind of such a man as this it is difficult to 
describe by anything which he permitted to appear 
outwardly. We must therefore let him speak for 
himself in a correspondence with that partner of 
his travels and intrigues, who was not bold enough 
again to venture into the circle of his country’s 
society, after having violated those ties by which it 
is held together. 

Villars had been his school-fellow at Eton, his 
chum at Christchurch, his companion in all his 
Sybaritian intrigues of London and the Continent. 
Reading the same books, forming themselves upon 
the same models, they made all their studies tend 
to the same end. 

Born with high passions, increased by the volup- 
tuous nature of their pursuits, their end was 
pleasure — excitement was their aim ; and every 
thing which produced it was pursued, till, at the 
age of thirty, they might, like the Roman emperor, 
have offered a reward for a new sensation i — the 
world had no new novelty to present to them but 
“ virtue;” and that was too cold a goddess to per- 
suade them to follow in her train. 

With regard to pleasure, they were in the state 
of Alexander, who wept that he had no more 
worlds to conquer — so they could weep that there 
were no new pleasures to enjoy. 

Between men, who thus knew each other to the 
very bottom of their hearts, we may imagine a 
corresjmndence to exist without disguise; and it 
was to write to his friend that Leslie, ordering him- 
self to be “ not at home ” to any one, shut himself 
up in his library, where amidst all the elaborate works 
w hich he had the day before enumerated as having 
been written on virtue and morality — amidst all 
the moral disquisitions of Bacon and Boyle, and the 
wmrks of more sacred writers, he had often sat 
down with no other view than to plot the destruc- 
tion of innocence, and the violation of the most 
sacred duties of society. Nay, even in its very 
precincts, under the very eyes of those worthies of 
morality and literature. — But he shall speak for 
himself in the following epistle : — 

LESLIE TO VILLARS. 

“Talk not to me, Fred, of your olive-colored 
ladies of Spain — your dark-eyed women of Tus- 
cany — nor of your conversational and piquant 
demoiselles of France, for I am more than ever 
confirmed in my theory, that England is, after 
all, the garden of the sex — the parterre in which 
the choice.st flowers grow indigenously. Yes, Vil- 
lars, whether for wife or mistress — whether for the 
dalliance of an hour, or as a companion for life 
a thing that you and I never covet) — whether we 
think of them with the views of a voluptuary, or 
look to them only as to the enjoyment of their 
conversation and society, in my mind, the women 
of England stand paramount among all the others 
in Europe ; and you know that I have tried enough 
ot them to constitute my opinion a pretty tolerable 
authority. But I must not let my enthusiasm run 
away with me; for you know I can be enthu- 
siastic about women ; and what is better, can 
*p[>ear to be so to the dear souls themselves upon 
occasion, even though I may not be so in reality. 


Well, and now to answer your queries as to my 
reception in this old emporium of all our early 
follies and frolics — dear London. Read, and for 
the future say that Leslie is a true prophet: for, as 
I prognosticated, my dear Villars, so has it turno 1 
out — my affair here is blown over. Time, that 
great physician to all the evils, and the great 
destroyer of all the goods, excepting wine and 
antiquities, of this world, has buried the event, 
wffiich made so much noise at the moment, in 
a thousand others of the same nature, more inte- 
resting, because more recent. 

These are not the days of our grandmothers, 
when elopements and crim-cons were scarce — 
hardly a morning paper but now records som« 
frail step or other; and the number of things of th€ 
same sort that have happened since my affair, 
together with a number which, from certain out- 
ward appearances, are anticipated, have closed the 
mouth of scandal against me and my little “delito,’' 
and given plenty of occupation for that most ex- 
pressive feature of the human face with others. 

My return was therefore welcomed every where. 
Among the men you know, there was of course no 
doubt as to my reception ; and as to the women, 
dear souls, I really believe that, had they dared, 
they would have received me like a triumphant 
conqueror, with the waving of their white cambric 
handkerchiefs. Good generous souls! you know 
they always exonerate our sex from blame, and fix 
it on their own ; excepting indeed in their 
own particular cases, and then both you and 
I know that they can be bitter enough upon 
occasion. 

Then, by ruining one you oblige so many, so 
that the majority is always in your favor. But to 
my narrative — I knew that the only way was to 
carry the thing by a coup-de-main ; not to gwe 
the demurrers a moment for reflection and memory, 
but to dash at once into the midst of our old circle, 
and run the gauntlet of exclamations and sur- 
prises. 

To give time for the papers to announce, 
(and the devils are always sure to have it.) tliat 
Sir Robert Leslie, Bart. “ had arrived at his house 
in Audley Square from the continent,” was to give 
time for all the old tabbies of widows, wives, and 
spinsters, to convocate and cabal, and make a party 
against me; and who knows what they might not 
have effected against a poor, unprotected, injured 
person like myself. Accordingly I toiletted ai the 
last stage ; gave orders to La Tour to drive through 
the squares, and set me down at the first house 
where lights and carriages should give the tokens 
of an assembly; dashed into town full gallop, and 
determined, like Cromwell and Buonaparte, to 
appear in the very midst of the conspirators. 

As luck wmuld have it, the first open house we 
came to, was that of the old Marchioness of 
Townley. 

Oh, Villars ! had you heard the buzz that went 
from circle to circle, and from room to room, as 
the name of Leslie once more echoed through a 
London staircase ! I verily thought the dancers 
would have become motionless, and the lights have 
been extinguished as those were which we read of 
in our childhood in some fairy tale, nwd have, I 
believe, seen on the stage in a pantomime, on the 
entrance of some renowned magician, whethei 


THE ROUE. 


49 


beneficent or not, I cannot call to mv recollec- 
tion. 

Our hostess, the marchioness, was just in the 
same place, and on the same satin damask settee, 
receiving her company, as we last saw her five 
years ago; that memorable night — dost remem- 
ber it, Fred ? I do ! Her diamonds and her rouge 
seemed as though they had never been misplaced 
since, except, indeed, that there might be a little 
more of the latter to hide the five additional 
wrinkles in which the five additional years are 
recorded in that face, which, instead of being 
called the index of the mind, should rather be 
termed the index of time, for it is there he keeps 
his score; and as though the old gentleman could 
not write, he never settles an account with us that 
he does not make his mark ; and putting his 
“crow’s foot” upon it, “delivers it as his act and 
deed.” 

I bowed upon the old lady’s hand, with a “ how 
d’ye do, Marchioness,” of a day’s separation, and 
sailed into the saloon. 

Had I really dropped from the clouds, the sen- 
sation could not have been much greater. The 
awkwardness of Icarus was, that he fell upon his 
head ; but I, as usual, lighted on my feet. 

“ How did he come ? where from I when did 
he arrive!” met my ears in whispers, in every 
direction ; and I was not quite deaf, my dear Vil- 
lars, to the little addenda to these whispers of 
“ How well he looks! Just the same creature as 
ever !” 

When a woman calls one creature, one is always 
sure to be well with them : they go a step further 
W’heh they call us “ wretch though they some- 
times, very unjustly, accuse us of entitling them to 
this monocognomen. 

As I said before, the quadrillers, those who knew 
me, nearly stood still, Challoner bawled out 
diassez-quafre, and settled their wonder. Then 
there were little coteries of old women drawing up 
their prim countenances in corners, that were 
smoothed down by my address to them, and by all 
my bland inquiries after each of their favorite pro- 
pensities. My memory flowed full upon me, and I 
was blessed with a perfect recollection of all their 
little peculiarities ; so I pressed them into my im- 
mediate service as pioneers to clear the way before 
me. 

Here and there were half-dozens of young ladies, 
come out since we left England ; these were peer- 
ing at me from behind screens, fans, and window 
curtains, evidently showing that they had heard 
of me, and regarded me with a curiosity, which, 
excuse me, Fred, seemed more than gratified. Poor 
souls, they don’t know yet what they are come out 
for ! 

The men of course welcomed me, all except 
one ! and as yuu know the last time we parted he 
had a fair shot at me, I think he ought to have 
welcomed me too ; but the fellow looked as though 
he cursed himself for being a bad shot, which is 
very ungrateful, since he cannot but remember that 
I had my choice of firing at him at ten paces, or 
at an oak-tree at thirty ; and chose the latter, to 
the utter demolition of a complete dose of bark, 
and to the safety of the third button of his waist- 
coat. I had ten times rather that a fellow should 
fire at me till his powder was exhausted and his 


punctilio satisfied, than that he should thus bear 
malice • besides after all. he was only her bro- 
ther. 

Well, I was soon perfectly at home with every 

body ; Lady D looked very doubtful, but I 

settled her with a waltz ; Mrs. T. turned up her 
little black eyes, and lifted up her pretty hands : 
you must remember those taper fingers, because I 
have seen them within your own, when she little 
thought that you merely pressed her hand to con- 
vince me how well you were with her. Oh ! Fred, 
Fred, you are a sad dog, and there is no reforming 
you ; [ brought her over in a quadrille, and before 
the grand rond she had mi»de the grand tour with 
.me in imagination ; and with a little hesitation, 
and a softened voice, asked after my friend she 
has not forgotten you, Fred. 

Oh, woman ! woman ! what has thou not to 
answer fori Should not you and I now be per 
feet hermits — very anchorites — models of perfection 
and consistency, but for these women 1 We cer- 
tainly should. Had Galileo been endungeoned — 
forgive the word, for discovering the beauties and 
perfections in the heavenly bodies of woman, in- 
stead of pouring over, or rather under the stars, he 
might have borne his incarnation with some degree 
of patience ; for the recollections with which they 
would have stored his memory, would have diverted 
him in this solitude. 

Dost remember our remark when we saw the 
finger of this star-gazer under the glass-case in the 
Lauren tian Library at Florence, pointing towards 
the sky as if there were an eye in the tip of it to 
discover more stars, and fresh beauties in the 
heavenly bodies 1 Dost remember, I say where we 
would have placed iti Why, in the tribune to be 
sure ; and made it point upwards to the “ statue 
which enchants the world,” and to the glowing 
Venuses of Titian behind her! Could Galileo, 
Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Newton, or the whole host 
of star-gazers, have bestowed their observations on 
more “ heavenly bodies” then these 1 

In the centemplation of the Medicean Venus, 
Bianchini, her countryman, need not have gone to 
the expense of Campani’s famous telescope to dis- 
cover her beauties. Her proportions may be mea- 
sured without the use of the Roman palm. Eh, 
Fred ! they are open to the naked eye ; and such 
transcendent ones they are, that they almost put 
us out of conceit with those forms, which have only 
the advantage of flesh and blood over them, while 
they are so inferior in every other respect. To l>e 
sure this advantage is to ours sometimes, and so 
I must be charitable and silent. 

But to our friends of a certain class ; by this 
you know I designate those who have no character 
to lose; while my uncertain class consists of all 
the people of reputed reputation, who fill up the 
great portion of society, and have done nothing so 
glaring as to be “ sponged ” out of the canvass — 
Yet — God knows what they may do ! 

The green vis-a-vis rolls about as usual ; the 
eternal claret-colored barouche is everywhere ; the 
yellow-bodied chariot, with brown arms on its pan- 
nels outside, with which the arms within began to 
vie in point of complexion ; (I suppose these kind 
of fair ones, for want of other heraldry, think 
themselves entitled to the arms of their noble sup- 
porters;) the piquant demi-foriune, decorated with 


50 THE ROUlfi. 


brass outside and in ; the brovvnstripcd cab ; and a 
variety of other vehicles of our acquaintance are 
still grinding the dust of the Park, and dashing 
through the mud of M’Adarn in the streets. You 
see f designate each lad}' by her “ carriage.” 

Time has made some inroads on all of these ; 
for five years are not to be passed over with impu- 
nity. And as to some other of our fair acquaint- 
ance, who once graced our famous coterie in 

Street, I am sorry to say, Fred, they are sunk 
down to the pave — or below it — into the grave. 

Does not this make you tremble ? 

Repent in time, Fred, pray do. If you can’t do it 
all at once, do it by degrees; wipe off a sin a day, 
by devoting one hour to repentance ; but mind and 
don’t make the balance at the bottom still the 
same, by committing another at night. Don’t score 
up a sin on the debtor side for every one you 
knock off on the credit side. Take your hour 
before breakfast while your clarretty headache is 
upon you ; you will find it more adapted for the 
purposes of repentance than any other part of the 
day. 

As to my uncertain class, strange to say, there 
is not so much vicissitude as in the other. They 
still go on in their own jog-trot way. Certain 
liberties and licences allowed, certain limits, which 
must not be passed, but which you and I, Fred, 
know are pretty extensive. The boundaries of the 
preserves are large, and as long as you pursue 
your game, and catch it according to the custom 
of the manor, w'hy you may go on shooting till the 
end of the season without the feaj of destroying the 
cover. 

A few more parvenues have rqjjed up the hill 
.of society on their golden wheels; and some of 
those whom we left at the top of it, have rolled 
down pretty quickly by the magic of “seven’s the 
main” at ’s. 

Lady T and her set, and the Marchioness 

and her coterie, keep their ground. They 

take great liberties with each other’s characters; 
but as neither of them are believed, why their 
“ scandal’s praise,” as their praise would indegd 
sciindal. 

Time has also brought forward on the tapis 
some new maids and some new-made wives. 
Among the latter, a fascinating artiste, whom so 
many of us sighed after in vain, and who was only 
to be won as a wife, is married, and an excellent 
wife they say she makes. I hope nobody will 
spoil her ! 

She rolls about town in a carriage of her hus- ’ 
band’s invention, without traces, like that in the 
famous picture of Aurora by Guido. 

Would you or I, Fred, knowing what we know, 
trust our wives, supposing we had any, in this 
wicked town of ours, anywhere, without traces? 

I should think not ! 

A blooming baby, a coquette in embryo, smiles 
from the carriage-window, a proof that “ Time” 
has done something for her; for the old gentleman 
makes as well as mars. As to our men ; our own 
set go on just as usual, intriguing with each other’s 
mistresses ; triumphing and triumphed over by 
turns. They do say that wives are not entirely 
excluded from the general exchange, but you and 
I, Fred, are by far too gootl-natured to believe it. 

Dorrington, whose passion you know was ambi- 


tion, was very nearly being hien monte. He had 
attained the last step of the political ladder; had 
scrambled up to the very summit of the mountain ; 
was on the point of being the premier, when he 
was suddenly tuuibled to the bottom, with no other 
benefit from his elevation, than that the bruises he 
got in his fall were as great as though he had 
actually gained the apex of his wishes. 

He is now laughed at by all parties ; and so much 
for ambition ! 

Lumley, whose madness, for all these passions 
are madness, was patriotism, embarked his all, first 
in the emancipation of South America, and next in 
the cause of the Greeks. He was obliged to fly the 
one for fear of being assassinated by the party 
he supported, and hung judicially by the one he 
opposed ; and has returned home from the other, 
without a guinea in his pocket, and with but one 
hand to take it out if he had; and so much for 
patriotism ! 

Granville, the prudent, as he was called at Eton, 
the miser as he was called at Oxford, who wished 
that his fingers had been endued with a Midas 
power, has still continued to make wealth his god. 
He married a woman worth her “ weight in gold ;” 
and if his wealth could have found out any guard 
that could have preserved it as securely as her own 
ugliness ensured his wife’s fidelity, it would have 
been secure indeed. But a great speculation in the 
funds, by which his enormous w'ealth was to have 
been quadrupled, failed, and left him nothing of his 
god Midas but the “ ears ;” and so much for 
prudence ! 

Now, if these be the ends of ambition, patriotism, 
and prudence, is it not clearly proved that a life of 
pleasure is the best 1 

Don’t you remember how our worthy sires. 
Heaven rest their souls, and bless their memories for 
putting us so early in the possession of our estates, 
were wont to point out tlvBse three worthies as ex- 
amples for our imitation,; but I always knew we 
were wiser than our fathers; didn’t you, Fred 1 

So much for them ; and now, Fred, for the pith 
of my intelligence, the marrow of my letter. Put 
all that has gone before aside, as we do the rubl-ish 
that has accumulated in Rome, before we come to 
the tesselated pavement — the veritable soil of the 
mother and empress of the world. Dost remember 
Trevor 1 There’s a bathos ! it puts you in mind, 
no doubt, of Juliet’s nurse, — 

Your love says like an honest gentleman. 

And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome. 

And, I warrant, a virtuous. Where’s your mother ? 

and you say. What the devil has the empress of 
the world to do with our quondam acquaintance 
Trevor ? Why, neither more nor less, Villars, than 
that this vascilating fellow who always rowed in 
our wake at college, and followed our example at 
an humble distance on the Continent, has married 
a woman that deserves to be empress of the world, 
if every body had their deserts. 

But nobody has, else we should not be where we 
are; for we are certainly deserving of a throne or 
the gallows, though for the life of me I cannot tell 
which ; and at present we have attained to neither 
of them. 


THE R0U£ 


51 


But to this — 3^es, T will call her woman — but 
such a one, V'i liars !— one of my peculiars ! 
How shall I paint her to your imagination, Fretl ] 
For it is loo gross of itself lo conceive such a 
creature without the aid of my pen ; yet, by my 
soul, 

It strains me past the conjpass of my wits 

to describe her with any degree of justice. 

Indeed, what artist would be equal to the task, 
even with the aid of all the colors which na- 
ture has so kindly furnished for the imitation] 

The hand of Raphael could not have depicted 
her dignity ; Corregio’s mingling collors could not 
have portrayed her softness ; the glowing pencil 
of Titian would have failed in her complexion ; 
and Michael Angelo himself could not have done 
justice to her form. 

As to her eyes, her complexion, her hair, I can- 
not attempt to describe them ; her first impression, 
and I am yet speaking from first impression, is like 
that which we both felt on our first contemplation 
of the Via Sacra and San Pietro, — so overwhelm- 
ing that the mind has no leisure for details. 

It is precisely that kind of beauty which defies 
analysis; a beauty arising from a complete whole; 
a beauty which, as Hogarth says, “ is seen and 
confessed by all ; yet, from the many fruitless at- 
tempts to account for the cause of its being so, in- 
quiries on this head have almost been given up, 
and the subject generally thought to be a matter 
of too high and too delicate a nature to admit of 
anv true or intelligible discussion. 

imagine, if thou canst, Milton’s Eve mingled 
with Byron’s Gulnare ; Desdemona’s delicacy with 
Juliet’s voluptuousness; in short, imagine some- 
thing that thou hast never seen, and thou may’st 
perhaps hit upon something like Agnes — Trevor — 
for Trevor is her name by law ; that d — d law 
which confines a woman to one man, and gives him 
the power of monopoly over a magazine of charms 
that might have furnished beauties for a hundred 
of her silly sex. Then she is as unlike the rest 
of them in manners and mind as she is in person ; 
she acts from feelirig instead of form ; sets cere- 
mony at defiance ; thinks for herself; patronises 
talent wherever she can find it; takes up the cud- 
gels in defence of the oppressed and injured ; de- 
tests affectation, and in the midst of fashion, is the 
creature that nature intended her to be, and that 
poets have made her. 

She has imagined a world of her own, and 
peopled it according to her imagination ; and strong 
in the native elegance of her own mind and per- 
son, astonishes the little minds of those who tread 
in the steps, or follow in the train of their prede- 
cessors. 

She owes everything to the creative energy of 
her owm mind. She acts and thinks, and speaks 
for herself; she is original; and all the masters in 
the world, with their arts of mannerism, and dan- 
dng, and music, would have only spoiled her, as 
the wretched plasterer Maderno destroyed, with 
his frippery, the magnificent design of Michael 
Angelo. 

Now is it not a shame that such a creature 
should be thrown away upon such a fellow as 
Trevor ] 


And how did he get, her] say you. Why, they 
danced together at one of the Prince’s juvenile 
balls, when children ; they met together again at 
the Dashington university quadrilles, which you 
and I, like fools, used to despise, knowing that the 
head of the college was only preparing pupils to 
turn them over to our hands in a greater stage of 
maturity, He handed her into the carriage at her 
presentation ; he danced through the first season 
with her; was opposed by her relatives, and car- 
ried her off. This is all I can find he ever did tj 
obtain h‘‘r. 

'Phe fact was, the lucky rascal was the first who 
whispered the word love in her ear; her heart and 
soul had already been attuned to the sound by her 
own nature and the nature of her studies. Trevor 
was thrown in the path at a critical moment ; to 
do him justice, the fellow has enough ardor while 
a pursuit is new ; the injustice done him by her 
relations roused the demon of opposition-generosity 
in her mind ; her imagination filled up the outline 
of a hero, which Trevor had given her, with quali- 
ties of her own creating, and she became his. Will 
he keep her! what think you ] 

I say, Fred, I was just thinking what a glorious 
mistress such a creature would make ! What a 
companion for the bright moonlight nights of 
Italy ! What a form to contemplate in the placid 
bosom of the Larian lake I Then, the sensations 
she would create in the saloons of Florence ! the 

comfort at the little albergos ! AJtogether 

But I must not think of it, I suppose. Ey-the-by, 
don’t pester me any more about that affair of the 
Lago Maggiore. The stipend I have left and se- 
cured, is enough to repair any injury in the world ; 
and, besides, all the happiness which she enjoyed, 
and which I taught her to enjoy, ought to be put to 
the credit side of account ; and as to the trumped- 
up deception of our anonymous gentleman, I set 
it at defiance, as I will himself the first time I meet 
him; all you have to do is never to disclose my 
real name, and all will soon be well. The most 
ruffled sea grow's calm at last ; and so, farewell.” 




CHAPTER XXI. 

Aones in vain attempted to shut her eyes to a 
conviction, the truth of which was hourly pressing 
upon her mi/id, and agonising her heart. All her 
early anticipations were disappointed; and when 
mentioned, were treated as romance by the very 
person who had encouraged her belief in their 
reality. Yet all this was done kindly, or carelessly, 
without an idea of giving pain : nor was there an 
expression which he uttered, that the most fastidi 
ous could have construed to unkindness. Trevor’s 
was a careless, rather than a bad heart: there was 
a buoyancy of spirits, a hilarity of mind, a joyous- 
ness of disposition, and a gentlemanly attention to 
his wife, that would have made an indifferent ob- 
server uronounce him the best husband in the 
world. 


52 


THE ROUli:. 


Hn(] 'IVovor's conduct been absolutely unkind, 
Airnes was not a woman to complain ; as it was, 
there was nothing she could fix upon in particular. 
It was only the general alteration of his manner, 
the general break up of all her hopes, and the 
complete disappointment of all her anticipations. 

Her house filled by the parties which Trevor 
thought it necessary to his rank and consequence 
to entertain, she exerted herself in public, to the 
delight of her guests, while she pined in secret 
over her disappointments, to the entire detriment of 
her happiness. 

She felt it hard to resign all those hopes of domes- 
tic joys w’hich she had so long indulged, and upon 
which she had almost lived, from the moment she 
felt she had a heart to appreciate them. She was 
like a person awaking from a dream of hap- 
piness to real misery, and who tries to sleep again, 
that the 

Amabilis insania, mentis gratissimus error 

of the youthful imagination might continue, though 
the reality had passed away. 

The short period of happiness, too, which she 
had experienced at Trevor Place, during the first 
fe\v weeks of her marriage, when she had indeed 
realized all her anticipations, and had felt her heart 
full of ha[)piness, rendered her present position and 
circumstances the more distressing from their con- 
trast and their recollection. 

Her feelings, thus thrown back upon themselves, 
her heart was in a per|)etuai state of expectation 
and disappointment — her eyes would overflow w'ith 
tears in the midst of apparent gaiety ; sighs would 
intrude themselves in the song with which she 
delighted her guests; and melancholy disturb her 
in the vortex of pleasure and dissipation, into 
which she was plunged by the habits of Tre- 
vor. 

Perhaps the greatest misery she experienced 
during this trial of her heart, temper, and under- 
standing, was the daily proof that Trevor afforded 
by his conduct of bow wrong an estimate she had 
formed of his character. To feel the object of our 
love daily sinking in our estimation, is one of the 
greatest trials to which human affection is subject. 
But the mind and heart of Agnes, in spite of her 
warm feelings, were too well regulated to love long 
where she could not esteem; and as this hitter feel- 
ing diminished, her love naturally became less, 
and her disappointment lost some part of its bit- 
terness. 

But where under such circumstances was her heart 
to find an uppui — where was she to turn for con- 
soiauon 1 T’o Lady Emily, her only friend, be- 
ing her husband’s sister, she could confide nothing 
of her present feelinp. Lady Emily had observed, 
and remonstrated with her brother on the impru- 
dence and folly of his conduct ; but she was afraid 
to symjiatbise with her friend on such a subject, 
both on her own account 4 s well as on account of 
her brother. 

In the mean time the heart of Agnes could not 
remain unoccupied; it was filled with all the best 
and noblest feelings of human nature, and with a' 
longing after the gratification of these feelings 
which knew no bounds. It was indeed a heart 
filled with loving-kindness to all her fellow crea- 


tures; and disappointed in her own hopes of hap- 
piness, she sought for means to add to that of 
others. She had her almoners in all directions in 
search of misery and misfortune; and where her 
purse could not relieve, her sympathy consoled the 
sufferer. Many were the deceptions practised upon 
her kindness, and disgraceful the ingratitude with 
which her bounty was often returned ; but though 
she regretted this, it did not alter her mode of con- 
duct. That her bounty was too indiscriminate, 
she was made sometimes to feel severely ; but be- 
cause there were some unworthy objects by whom 
her kindness might be abused, she saw no reason 
why she should neglect others who might be wor- 
thy of all she could do for them. 

Such a heart and mind as hers, were naturally 
and keenly alive to the admiration of men of 
genius; and her house and fortune gave her great 
opportunities of collecting together all the talent 
that was afloat in town. She even sought a relief 
for her disapyminted feelings in a perpetual round 
of society and dissipation ; and attempted to lose 
the thought of her disappointment in the gaiety of 
the dance, in the pleasures of conversation, or in 
the delights of music. 

In the mean time, Leslie had cultivated his 
intimacy with Trevor, till he had become perfectly 
the ami de la maison ,• and had so adroitly ma- 
naged his conduct and conversation, as entirely to 
banish from the mind of Agnes every former idea 
she had entertained of his character, except that 
of his repentance for an error arising from mo- 
mentary passion and irresistible temptation ; for 
such was the color he had contrived to give to the 
only affair of which Agnes had any knowledge, 
through the medium of her husband. 

Trevor was himself such an admirer of Leslie, 
that he had exerted himself to the utmost to over- 
come the prejudices of Agnes against his admission 
to their more select societies; but he could not 
accomplish this till the art of Leslie and the repre- 
sentations of her husband convinced her, that he 
had been belied and most unjustly treated by the 
opinions which had been disseminated with respect 
to his character. This was precisely the right 
chord to touch with Agnes : to be once convinced 
that anybody had been unjustly treated, was quite 
enough to make her generous heart rise in his 
defence ; and so, unhappily, it proved for her with 
regard to Leslie. 

With such feelings, it may be imagined he was 
not idle in improving his position. He devoted 
himself to conilensc and display all the talent he 
possessed — put forth all his powers of entertain- 
ment — gave accounts of romantic adventures 
abroad-^ and interspersed them with occasional 
and natural regrets, that he had as yet found Uw 
heart that had possessed the power to make him 
look for happiness at home. 

He perceived the gradual subsiding of afiection 
which the conduct of Trevor created ; he affected 
to sympathise with her by such expressions of 
general feeling, as she could not openly, though 
she might secretly, apply to herself — while he was 
the principal means of leading Trevor into all the 
dissipation in which he indulged, and which now 
frequently made him a stranger to his own home 
for days together. 

Upon these occasions, Leslie would contrive that 


THE ROUE. 


53 


Agnes should hear him reproach her husband for 
his absence ; and mingle these reproaches with 
representations of the happiness he was throwing 
away. Trevor was sometimes surprised at this 
conduct of Leslie’s, but always set it down to his 
wish to be well with his wife — and in this he was 
not deceived. 

While Sir Robert was thus making his way in 
the saloon, La Tour was not idle in the servant’s 
hall. Flounce had already received the subtle 
Frenchman into favor; and listened to his compli- 
ments and flattery, till Mr. Watkins was quite 
banished from her heart ; and never came in her 
way without being “ twitted,” to use his own 
expression, with the superior politeness of Monsieur 
La Tour. 

By these means many of the private actions 
of Agnes became known to Leslie : her hours 
of solitude were laid open to him : he learned that 
tliere w'ere melancholy moments in her dressing- 
room that ill accorded with her gaiety in public ; 
and he read, or thought he read in all this, the 
coming on of that vacancy of heart which is so 
often the prelude to another passion. 

He felt the game he was playing was secure as 
to the diminution, if not the eradication, of her 
love for Trevor; but there was an uprightness 
about her conduct — a noble sincerity of demeanor — 
an innate modesty that shone in all her actions, 
that gave him no clue to hope any thing farther. 
All he calculated upon was the necessity which he 
thought such a heart had for loving somebody ; 
and he trusted as the one passion died away, 
another might spring up in its place, and it was 
his determination to leave no effort untried to make 
himself the object of it. 

For this purpose he was determined to use 
every art. 'I'hat all was fair in love was his 
favorite creed; and he was indeed one of those 
who 

■\Vould not turn aside from his least pleasure, 

Though the world’s force were armed to bar his way. 

He looked upon the world as only filled with 
temptations, opportunities, and pleasures, that they 
might be enjoyed free from all restraint by those 
who had boldness enough to seize them. 

He, like the birds, great nature’s happy commoners. 

That haunt in woods, and meads, and flowery gardens, 
Would rifle sweets, and taste the choicest fruits, 

Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner’s leave. 

In pursuance of his sc^ieme, and the more closely 
tc draw the meshes of the net he w'as spreading 
round his intended victims, he apparently used 
evo'ry means to hide the dereliction from the duties 
of Trevor, and did all in his power to excuse the 
carelessness of the conduct he exhibited. This told 
well for him with both parties. It confirmed Tre- 
vor in the idea that Leslie entertained a true friend- 
ship for him, while it raised him considerably in 
the opinion of Agnes. 

Leslie, however, well knew that what he con- 
cealed in the drawing room, was freely communi- 
cated by La Tour in the steward’s room ; and he 
was likewise well aware that Flounce was made 
the confident of many of the actions of Trevor, 


which no female tongue could long withhold from 
communicating to her mistress. 

Indeed, La Tour generally accompanied these 
pieces of information with such little informations 
of his own, on such treatment of such a wife, as 
excited the indignation of poor Flounce, who thus 
became an innocent tool in the hands of these 
schemers, to undermine the little esteem for her 
husband, which still remained in the bosom of 
Agnes. 




CHAPTER XXII. 


About this period, Leslie received letters from 
his friend Villars, hinting at a subject upon which 
he had been forbidden to write, and to which Les- 
lie himself never alluded, unless upon absolute com- 
pulsion. It appeared to be the only subject upon 
which those friends did not write freely and unre- 
servedly ; nor could any thing clearly appear from 
the dark hints which were now and then scattered 
over their letters, upon the only point on which 
Leslie seemed to be peculiarly irritable. 

In some of his epistles Villars had. also ridiculed 
the idea of Leslie’s growing passion for Agnes; 
had taunted him with questions as to the measure 
of her attraction ; and had desired to know what 
there was so peculiarly attractive to attach a heart 
such as his so long to one object, while the passion 
appeared to be any thing but mutual. 

Sometimes he would launch out in praise of the 
new beauties which he had discovered in his travels 
since Leslie’s return to England ; complain of his 
own want of success, which he attributed to the 
absence of his able coadjutor and leader ; and 
tempt his return by his description of women 
whom he knew to be particularly suitable to the 
inclinations of Leslie. 

At others, he would describe the despair of this 
signora and of that contessa ; and even ventured 
once or twice to hint, that his sudden departure 
from Florence and his continued absence was at- 
tributed in the higher circles to his unsuccessful 
attempt on a certain principessa, and his dread of 
a rencontre with a principe marito, who was notori- 
ous as the best shot and the most expert swordsman 
in Italy. 

In his letters, Villars again urged strongly his 
return to Italy ; and expressed his wonder that a 
woman who seemed so inaccessible, should detain 
him so long in cold, drear England, while the fer- 
tile plains and blue skies, and warm hearted 
women of Italy, were all ready to welcome him 
with open arms. To these remonstrances, Leslie 
replied by the following epistle. 

LESLIE TO VILLARS, 

“You ask me, Fred, what in the name of won- 
der there is, or can be in this dear delicious woman, 
thus to seize upon the heart and fancy (for my 
heart is, for this once, absolutely in the adventure) 

( 4 ) 


54 


THE ROUfi. 


of such a capricious (Jevil as 1 am; and fiith, with- 
out. seeing her — without conversing with her — 
without knowing her, it would be difficult to tell 
you. 

You know I fell in love with Lady D for 

her eyes; with Mrs. S — T for a lock of her 

hair, which hung so carelessly and luxuriantly on 
her snowy shoulders, that, if you recollect, I told 
her I no longer wondered at the title of Pope’s 

fiinous poem ! Mrs. C attracted me by the 

roundness of her arm ; and her cousin, by the pret- 
tiest little foot in the world, which excited my 
curiosity by peeping so daintily under her flounced 
petticoat at one of tho.se soirees which the blind 
dowager used to give for the benefit of those who 
could see better than herself. You know one of 
my odd fancies— for some how or other I have had 
a great manv odd fancies about women — was the 
mole which by contrast rendered the neck of the 
once charming little countess so much the W'hiter. 
In short, I have been in love with a hundred 
dilferent beauties, or oddities, about their persons ; 
but here, Fred, I am in love with the whole; for 
all the beauties which my luxuriant imagination can 
think of, and you know it is luxuriant upon these 
subjects, seem congregated in the person of this 
woman. Idke Shakspeare’s Rosalind, she seems 
to combine the various beauties of various women 
in her precious self. 

Then her mind — her imagination — her feel- 
ing — her sensibility — all combine to render her still 
more charming. 

She feels, she lives, she breathes in poetry ; she 
makes a romance in real life; and gives an inde- 
.scribable interest to all the nothingness of exist- 
ence. Wherever she moves a charm seems spread 
around her. She is like one of those creatures in a 
fairy story, beneath w^hose feet one can imagine the 
beauties of nature to spring up spontaneously ; one 
whose step and presence might be supposed to 
clothe a desert with flowers, and whose touch 
could draw a living spring from a barren rock. 

What a being to inspire with love ! w'hat a bliss 
to know that sucli a creature centred her principal 
hopes of pleasure and of happiness in you ! Eh, 
Fred, wouldn’t it be real Elysium to lie in such 
arms as hers ; to repose upon such a bosom as 
hers, to read in her eyes your own passion re- 
flected ] 

But I madden at the thought ; I could dip my 
pen in lava — living, flowing lava — to give a vent 
to my imagination, when it dares wander this way ; 
and when does it wander in any other direction 1 
But I must be calm, or the mine I arn laying for 
another will be sprung by my own hotheadedness, 
and blow up myself. 

Is it not strange, Fred, that with all this sensibility ; 
all this warmth of temperament ; all these capabili- 
ties of loving; that she should be prudence per- 
sonified : — that her delicacy should place a rubicon 
around her, which Caesar himself would not have 
dared to pass ? 

Is it not strange, that a creature of such passions 
— for that a creature of high passions she is, her 
eye leaves no doubt; such an eye, Fred, so dark, 
yet so clear ^ so bright, yet so soft — is it not strange, 
I say, that she should be ever so watchful over 
them, as to suffer no tell-tale devil to peep out, and 
iJesigriate the moment to attack her; and how to at- 


tack her, I cannot for the life of me tell. She is a 
perfect puzzle. There is not another woman of her 
feeling in the world, that by this time, eitJier by ac« 
cident or design, had not afforded a dozen opportu- 
nities which such a daring devil as myself might 
have turned to some account. But here, Fred, I 
am foiled — foiled and puzzled. There is no prudish 
withdrawing of hands, and no affected casting 
down of eyes; no coy avoidance of my society an! 
conversatiim ; but quite the contrary ; and yet not 
one peg of comfort on which to hang a hope. 

Thou knowTst how I have talked myself into 
the good graces of the fair Parisiennes; how' I have 
waltzed myself into the tough hearts of the Ger- 
mans, and the pudding souls of the Dutch; how I 
have sighed myself into the arms of the voluptuous 
sex in Italy and Spain ; and you and all the world 
know that I have hitherto been anything but un- 
successful with our fair countrywomen here. 

You know, Fred, how closely I have studied the 
sex in all countries, and thought that I knew them 
thoroughly from the slipper to the tiara; from a 
heart-string to a stay-lace. Yet here I am puzzled 
by a girl — a mere novice; with no more knowledge 
of the world than a cold, heartless husband could 
give her; and husbands are afraid to teach their 
wives too much. 

What a pity, Fred, to make such a woman a 
wife ! What a pity, in such a soul as hers, to make 
love nothing but the cold performance of a duty ! 
What a mistress has here been spoiled by the ab- 
surdity of those human ties wdiich fetter the heart; 
and would convert the gratification of our most 
natural feelings into a crime ! Did nature bestow 
upon us passions warm as fliose with wdiich my 
heart is now beating; and pleasures glow-ing as 
those which my imagination is anticipating, only 
that we should enjoy them, as the dancing bear 
does the little liberty his keeper allows him — in 
chains 1 

Marriages, says some sage or fool, and sages and 
fools are very much alike, upon the same principle 
that two extremes generally meet, are made in 
heaven. Why the devil then didn’t they keep 
them there! and not come to trouble our earth with 
them; for rny part I am very willing to wait till 
I get there for a taste of matrimony ; arn’t you, 
Fred] 

It is astonishing in what different ways different 
people speak of this same marriage : some call it a 
curse, and some a blessing; but I rather think him 
in the right who described it as a feast, in which 
the grace was better than the dinner. 

Marriage appears to me, Fred, in the light of one 
of those expensive locks which teaches the thief 
where the treasure lies, by the very care that is 
taken to preserve it. It is the lock and not the trea- 
sure that forms the temptation ; and every me- 
chanic in that line sets to work to invent a 
picklock that shall undo it. 

I say, Fred, what a devilish clever fellow he 
would be, and what a fortune he would make, 
who could become a Bramah in the matrimonial 
lock, and invent some security against the violation 
of its wards. 

Lord, Lord, what a run such an article would 
have with the poor devils of husbands. 

Imagine a shop of this sort opened in the 
vicinity of St. James’s, and think wnth what eager- 


THE ROU]&. 


55 


ness our friends from A to Z — for the whole alpha- 
bet would scarcely furnish initials enough for the 
husbands that you and I would give their ears for 
such an invention — would flock to purchase it. 
The only hope of a poor batchelor on the pave 
would be, that the great demand might create 
a scarcity, or induce the sale of a spurious article, 
wdiich, by giving the marito an imagined security, 
might make the way in some instances, a little 
easier. 

I wonder whether Trevor would purchase. No, 
no; for his Agnes is so high up in virtue, that 
even all his neglect of her never creates the shadow 
of suspicion in him ; she is so much above it, that 
it never enters his imagination to suspect her 
virtue. 

What country is that, Fred, where the women 
w^ere wont to designate the number of their para- 
mours by fringed tassels at the bottom of their 
garments, and wore them as marks of honor? 
That was a sensible country, Fred, and the women 
must have been good judges of trimmings, and 
most certainly appreciated us properly. I suppose 
Shakspeare had some notion of this place in his 
head when he makes Juliet talk of luring the 

Tassel-gentle back again. 

And yet T would not have this Agnes one of them 
for the world. No; by my soul, I would not. 
’Tis the very virtue that opposes them that adds to 
my desires — that adds fuel to the flame which is 
consuming me. It gives dignity to her beauty, 
and makes the accomplishment of my wishes a fit 
object for the ambition of such a heart as mine. 

Why do you pester me with the Lago Maggiore 
still? Are they not satisfied with what I have 
done ? is it not noble ? is it not handsome ? is it 
not sufficient for one with twice her rank and 
pretensions? is it not enough that I have taught 
her once to be happy, and in that lesson has 
she not learned to be happy again? How unrea- 
sonable these devils are when we have done with 
them ! aye, and before too ! As to the claims you 
speak of, you know I laugh at them. There 
is none but the cursed scribbler of that cramp-hand 
written letter that can witness against me, except- 
ing yourself. Nay, you are not in the secret, for 
it was all effected through him, whoever he may 
be ; and though I have nothing to trace him by but 
a few lines oi bis hand-writing, I trust I shall find 
him ; and when ♦’hat is the case, he shall most 
surel}^ rue ever havu'g crossed the path of Leslie, 
You say she threatens to follow me. Well, as 
she imagines me making the tour of the Ionian 
Islands, and as my last and only letter vyas 
despatched to her by our friend Lumley from the 
shores of the Adriatic, and as that was a kind of 
death-bed letter, I am afraid that she will have a 
great deal of trouble to very little purpose. — I say, 
Fred, if she be determined to leave the neigh- 
borhood of the Lago, can’t you persuade her to go 
to the cottage at Benace ? Change of scene, they 
say, is particularly good for mental invalids, and 
the malaria, so prevalent in that part of Italy, 
might cure her entirely of her particular com- 
plaint. 

What devils these women make us! 

You reproach me, Fred, and say I was wrong in 
cultivating this woman’s mind and manners, and 


accomplishments, and all that — and then — but I 
won’t repeat the — then. Look, Fred, at the Bor- 
romean Islands, the Isola Bella, and the Isola Ma- 
dre, were they not originally barren rocks without 
a leaf or tree ! and are they not now planted with 
groves of cedar, cypress, citron, and orange-trees 1 
are they not studded with grottos^and adorned with 
terraces ! and do they not smile with flowers ? and 
who, my dear Fred, has a right to enjoy these beau* 
ties ! who has a right to pluck these flowers and 
bask on these terraces? Does any body in the 
world deny the right of him who took the trouble 
of their magical creation? Well, Fred, and if this 
be true, and I find a heart and mind barren as these 
rocks, and am at the pains to cultivate them, take 
the trouble of planting flowers, and increasing or 
creating beauties — ergo ; — but, as usual, my argu- 
ments are so plain, that I leave the ergo to your- 
self. 

Then you will tell me in reply, to pursue the 
allegory that I was not content with cultivating the 
Isola Bella, but must turn it into the Isola Madre. 
But that came naturally enough. La Tour tells 
me ’tis time to dress to go to dinner at Trevor’s. 
Away then with every thing else to the winds. If 
she flies, let her fly in any direction but towards 
England. ?he is not aware of my real name. But 
more of this when Agnes is not in my thoughts 
and heart ; when she is there, there is room for no- 
thing else until another comes, and then well — 

then — farewell !” 




CHAPTER XXIII. 


In the midst of dissipation into which the habits 
of Trevor, more than her own inclinations, plung- 
ed her, Agnes however, shrunk from the heartlfiss- 
ness of the world by which she was surrounded. 
The entertainment of her imagination, however — 
mere enjoyment, even though of an intellectual 
character, was not sufficient for such a heart as 
hers. The gratification of her affections was ab- 
solutely necessary to her happiness; and having 
once tasted the sweets of a mutual and a virtuous 
passion — having once enjoyed that truest bliss that 
human aflection presents in the love of a hus- 
band, even her ardent friendship for Lady Emily 
was insufficient to satisfy the longings of her 
heart. 

In the midst, therefore, of society and of gayety 
— in the vortex of dissipation — in the splendor of 
fashionable existence— and in the contemplation 
and enjoyment of the wit, talent and genius which 
her circle presented — she felt a void ; her memory 
would travel back to her early anticipations, and 
live again over those short-lived scenes of vivid 
happiness which characterized the few first months 
of her marriage, and a sigh ot affectionate interest 
— of conjugal love — of desire for her husband’s 
society, would escape her bosom. Her eyes would 
travel around the splendid apartments in search of 
Trevor — her thoughts would seek him; but the 


56 


THE ROUfi. 


sigh she sent forth — ^the wish that was half uttered 
— the thought that flew after her husband, was all 
in vain. Her dream was over — she awoke — and 
could not sleep again. The light of day had dis- 
solved the fairy visions of her fancy, or rather the 
darkness of night had come over the brightness of 
her morning. 

The period at which we are now arrived, of the 
union of Agnes and Trevor, was precisely that 
period in which a husband may, if he pleases, con- 
firm the afl’ection of a wife. Passion cannot last 
for ever ; and the care of each party should be, as 
their warmer feelings cool, to see that they are re- 
placed by that esteem — by that tender friendship, 
which, when the result of mutual love and con- 
fidence, is the purest, most lasting, and most 
pleasing affection of which the human heart is 
capable. 

The husband who values his own future happi- 
ness and the affections of his wife, should watch 
this period with the greatest anxiety. He should 
be careful, very careful, that the change from the 
lover to the husband be not so marked that she 
perceives or feels it; and above all, he should 
beware of permitting her heart to derive any of its 
principal enjoyments from any other object than 
himself. 

It is the conduct of this early period of marriage 
that generally confirms the happiness or misery of 
a married couple throughout their lives; of course 
we are here speaking of people who have been 
united from motives of affection. As to those who 
marry from other motives, as they have never anti- 
cipated any high species of happiness from each 
other, so can they never experience the misery ofj 
disappointment ; and it is a melancholy reflection 
on the imperfection of human passion, to think that 
these marriages of interest and convenience gene- 
rally produce less unhappiness than those formed 
upon purer and nobler motives. 

Leslie, who, as he himself said, had literally 
studied women till he understood them from a 
“ heart-string to a stay-lace,’’ well knew that the 
precise period at which a woman’s heart is most 
vulnerable, is that in which its first and warmest 
feelings are beginning to experience that soul- 
lirickening disappointment which the commence- 
ment of neglect in a beloved and newly-made 
husband creates. Her mind draws comparisons 
between the ardent lover and the indifferent hus- 
band. Her imagination and feelings have been 
excited, and her tenderness awakened without 
being exhausted, and their legitimate object by 
his coolness repressing their expansion, the heart 
is too apt to find an appui elsewhere ; and there 
are always a sufficient number of specious liber- 
tines abroad on the look-out to take advantage 
of these feelings in a woman’s heart, by an appear- 
ance, or the promise, of keeping up the romance 
which her husband’s increasing coldness is melting 
•o rapidly into dull reality. 

Leslie was calculating upon all these operations 
in the heart of Agnes, and was ever on the watch 
to supply the deficiencies which the increasing 
absence of Trevor created. He was careful, too, 
by his conversation, to keep up the romantic turn 
of her mind, and so dressed up his sentiments and 
language as to impress her with an idea that there 
was something like congeniality between them: 


and all this his travels, his adventures, his ob- 
servations on human life, and his powers of des- 
cription, enabled him to do so well, that Agnea 
began to wonder at the character he bore in 
society ; and, from being the silent listener when- 
ever his character was stigmatised with the epi- 
thets which it deserved, she became, with her usual 
indignation at the injustice of the world, his de- 
fender. 

Leslie heard this, but it gave him no pleasure. 
He was convinced that while she could thus speak 
of him, though it was thus to defend him, that her 
heart was untouched — that she saw and felt no- 
thing more in his assiduities than his friendship 
for her husband — and that the only step he had 
obtained was to lull her suspicions of his real 
character to rest. This was, however, one point 
gained ; and, like the spider, who sees the fly 
pretty near the web, but still not likely to be 
speedily caught, he rested in silence to watch her 
movements, lest the slightest motion of his should 
alarm her, and betray to her eyes the snare he was 
preparing for her. 

He would then turn his thoughts to Trevor, and 
invent new temptations to lead him from his home. 
This was, unfortunately, no very difficult matter. 
He was led entirely by the set in which he lived 
— a set of dissipated profligates of which Leslie 
was the head; and it was Trevor’s glory, goaded 
on by the example and the ridicule of his com- 
panions, to show that he was too choice a spirit to 
be spoiled by marriage. 

Thus he began to play and to drink deep — es- 
tablished a little menage with a newly-arrived 
opera-dancer, to whom Leslie, having known her 
in Italy, had given instructions to throw out all her 
allurements, and for whom Trevor’s temporary 
penchant was increased by the occasional expres- 
sions of praise and of envy which escaped from 
Leslie and the rest of his set. 

There was one thing, however, in this pursuit, 
that Leslie did not anticipate ; which was, that he 
became so enthralled in the chains he was forging 
with so much labor for Agnes, as to find the suc- 
cess of his scheme absolutely necessary to what he 
termed the happiness of his life. 

He had calculated that his own indifference 
would enable him to escape, as usual, with impu- 
nity. That which, in the first instance, had been 
a mere captivation of his senses, had however be- 
come, by the contemplation of the loveliness of her 
mind, as well as the beauty of her person, an over- 
whelming passion of his soul ; and he saw that he 
must devote his whole energy and experience to 
accomplish wishes, which he felt would be his tor- 
ment if they remained ungratified. 

Incapable of that generous passion which wmuld 
have sought the happiness of its object by the sa- 
crifice of his own feelings, he had not courage to 
permit all the excellencies which surprised him — 
all the loveliness which excited his admiration — to 
induce him to attempt the conquest of his own 
vice rather than her virtue. He saw but one me- 
thod of relief, and that was by the attainment of 
his object, the accomplishment of his end — the 
destruction of Agnes. 

When first he saw her and marked her for his 
own, the momentary gratification of his senses, and 
the additional triumph over that sex which it was 


THE ROUfi. 


57 


the glory of his life, to flatter and despise — to 
elevate and to subdue, was all that he contemplat- 
ed ! and judging from others, he imagined that the 
carelessness of Trevor, united with her own warm 
feelings and his insidious arts, promised him an 
easy task. 

He soon found, however, that he was egregious- 
ly mistaken in his calculations, and that such a 
woman as Agnes Trevor was not to be won by the 
manoeuvres of a hacknied libertine. 

Leslie had studied the female heart well, but he 
had studied in a school where there were few such 
examples as that presented by Agnes; and by 
those he had never yet been attracted. He had 
been accustomed to press every passion of the 
female bosom into his service, and make them sub- 
servient to the success of his schemes. He had 
owed as many of his bonnes fortunes to the envy, 
jealously, and vanity of the sex, as he had to their 
love. He had studied all the weaknesses of the 
female mind and heart, and had profited by them ; 
but he was unaware of their strength, and he never 
before met with such a mind and heart, as Agnes 
possessed. 

Many women would have been thrown into his 
arms by the carelessness of such a husband as 
Trevor, out of mere revenge for the slights with 
which he insulted her. But Leslie soon discovered 
how superior Agnes was to all those feelings to 
which, with other women, he had owed so much 
of his success ; and in spite of the restraint it put 
upon him, he acted accordingly, till he found him- 
self so wrapped up in the object of his wishes, 
that he devoted his life to their accomplishment ; 
and with unwearied industry, he determined to 
pursue his scheme of first winning her heart, and 
then her person. 

He had not, hitherto, however, dared to breathe 
a word that could lead to a supposition of the 
existence of his passion, although his heart was 
boiling over with the ebullition of the sensation she 
excited ; he saw that a premature disclosure would 
ruin all, and he had trained his feeling so com- 
pletely as to prevent any betrayal of his wishes, 
till he saw the hope of their near accomplishment, 
or till he saw their expression would not irremedi- 
ably offend. 

As the friend of her husband she had first re- 
ceived him, and as her own she could not refuse 
to acknowledge him, after the many instances he 
had given of his sympathy with her distresses, and 
after the many attempts to call back her husband 
to a sense of his duty, for which she gave him 
credit. 

She had heard much of his libertine character, 
and that had put her on her guard ; but from her 
actual observation, she had no evidence of its truth, 
and her mind was secretly inclined to believe that 
he had been belied. 

She admired his talents, delighted in his con- 
versation, and was often induced to regret that they 
were not more worthily bestowed in making some 
woman happy as a wife, instead of rendering so 
many miserable, as it was reported he had done, as 
mistresses. 

Sometimes she would rally him upon his deter- 
mined insensibility to the sex. Upon these occa- 
sions he would sigh and say, that if she knew all, 
she would not deem him so insensible as he was 


represented ; then he would abruptly break from 
the subject, as though it were one that was painful 
to his feelings, till at length she felt fully persuaded 
taat he loved, but loved unhappily. 

This idea was precisely that with which the 
insidious Leslie had wished to impress her ; and it 
was no sooner conceived, than every trivial circum- 
stance tended to confirm its truth in the mind of 
Agnes. 

This feeling created something like sympathy 
for him ; he had sympathised with her in her dis- 
tress ; it was but natural, nay, but just, that sho 
should sympathise with him in return. 

He knew this, he calculated upon it, ^nd he 
was not mistaken ; and he knew the power of sym- 
pathy to soften the heart, and particularly the fe- 
male one. 

Such an idea, too, invested him with a charac- 
ter of deeper feeling than any for which she had 
yet given him credit. This at once, in her eyes, 
diminished the other blemishes which were attri- 
buted to him ; for, unfortunately for her, with 
Agnes, “ feeling covered a multitude of sins.’^ 

She began to believe him the victim of many 
stories that were untrue, that had been dissemi- 
nated to his disadvantage ; and as this idea gained 
possession of her mind, her native generosity took 
his part ; and her just indignation against the scan- 
dal to which he was sacrificed, made her think it a 
duty to rescue such a man from the odium which 
was attached to him so unjustly. 

Perhaps, too, the wish would semctimes cross 
her mind, that Trevor had been such a being — that 
Trevor had possessed such sentiments as those, 
which Leslie so well knew how to express in a 
manner that was precisely suited to her romantic 
notions. 

Her memoryrecurred to all the early fancies of her 
youth, when her imagination occupied itself in an- 
ticipating her future life, and in dressing up the ac- 
tions which were to fill it, and the characters that 
were to perform them, according to her own wishes, 
or to the books she had read. 

She recurred to her school-day fancies of a 
hero, careless of danger, braving difficulties, gay, 
generous, and daring in any and every thing that 
gave 

Hope of a pleasure, or peril of a grave. 

As these old fancies crowded upon her mind, 
she could not help investing Leslie with those 
attributes. 

His conduct as a soldier; his pre-eminence in so- 
ciety, which even his enemies were obliged to ac- 
knowledge; his talented conversation, and his 
superior manners, were precisely calculated to 
strengthen this idea, which gained ground rapidly 
in her mind, from the moment that she attributed 
the stories that were propagated against him to the 
score of calumny. 

Then the incipient regret that she had not met 
with such a being earlier in life stole over her 
mind ; but that was as quickly banished by the idea 
that he loved, and loved somebody that was insen- 
sible to his passion. 

Then arose the question in her own heart, 
and a dangerous one it was, — Can this be pos- 
sible ? 


58 


THE roue. 


Then came the restless curiosity to know who 
the fair one was that could penetrate such a heart 
as his was said to be. He^ mind’s eye ran over all 
the females of their mutual acquaintance; can- 
vassed their personal and mental qualities to ascer- 
tain which was the most likely to have subdued 
him. But here she was completely at fault; none 
of them seemed likely to be attractive to a mind so 
confessedly fastidious as his. One was too common- 
place; another was deficient in wit; a third, in 
person; a fourth, wanted that grace which she 
knew he considered indispensible ; and a fifth, who 
possessed every grace, wanted a soul; and that was 
a requisite which he had a thousand times declared 
more attractive than either mental accomplishments 
or personal beauty. 

By degrees, this anxiety to discover his secret 
became literally a disease; it tormented her day and 
night. 

“ Could I discover it,” said she, “ I might be of 
service to him; I might repay the debt I owe him, 
by rendering him service for service.” 

She thought, too, that few could be insensible to 
the many qualifications he possessed, that were so 
likely to make him agreeable to any woman whom 
he chose to select. 

She began to watch him norrowly with this view ; 
marked his countenance when he addressed a fe- 
male ; try to discover by his manner to whom he 
w'as attached — but all in vain ; all were treated 
alike by him, though he generally regulated his 
manners to the characters of those he was address- 
ing. Thus, with the lively, he would burst out into 
bis usual sallies of wdt; with the sentimental, he 
would sympathise; and with the grave, talk with 
the stoicism, if not the wisdom, of a Seneca. But, 
w'henever he quitted any party with whom he was 
conversing, be would immediately retire alone to 
some corner of the room, and appear to ensconce 
himself in his own thoughts — and to wrap himself 
up in the dreams of his own imagination. 

As time wore on, her curiosity increased till it 
became painful, and with it her interest for the 
man w'hose conduct had excited it. 

Several times was she on the point of soliciting 
bis confidence in the hope she entertained of being 
able to serve him ; but this her innate delicacy 
prevented, by which Leslie was disappointed. 
This was precisely the point to which he wished 
to bring her ; and he trusted to his own manage- 
ment to let sufficient escape him to make her feel 
that it was she, and she alone he loved, without 
making any explicit declaration ; or under such 
circumstances, should his passions hurry him into 
it, he still trusted so to contrive, that she should 
have to blame herself, and not him, for any 
knowledge she might obtain of the real state of his 
feelings. 

He had marked her curiosity, and gloried in the 
interest he had excited ; but he yet dreaded the 
effect of her supposing herself the object of his love. 
’I’his he felt must not be known, till he was much 
farther advanced ; till he was assured of her heart, 
though not of his ultimate success. 

He knew that a declaration to a married woman 
must either rob him of hope for ever, or give him 
reason to hope for every thing; for he had never 
met with a married woman who would permit the 
knowledge of the passion of a man, and see him, 


that she did not, sooner or later, become ail he wWied 
to make her. 

His great object now was, that she should know 
or guess at his passion ; but he had the utn>osf 
difficulty to accomplish t»his. Her delicacy af- 
forded him no opportunity of even hinting at it 
He had contrived to convince her that he loved 
somebody, and to excite her sympathy at his im- 
agined unhappiness; but no distant hint — no re- 
mote inuendo — and farther he dared not venture — 
served the purpose of conveying to her mind that 
she was the object of this love. 

With all the liveliness of her imagination and 
feeling, she had no spice of coquetry — she had no 
particle of vanity ; and never had entertained that 
wish for conquests, by which so many females, both 
married and single, are influenced, from the mere 
triumph of making them. 

To have known that any man truly and involun- 
tarily loved her, when there was no possibility of 
a return, might have excited her pity : but any ex- 
pression of such a passion, would have been treated 
with indignation, 

Leslie saw all this, and felt how far, how very 
far, he was from his object. He saw this, and 
cursed the obstacles that crossed his path, because 
they w'ere of a nature that he could not surmount 
by any of his usual means. 

Determined, however, to try if he could discover 
whether he was entirely indifferent to her, he tried 
to excite her jealousy by marked attentions to other 
females ; but though she watched him, he saw that 
it was merely with the same view that she had 
done so before, without feeling farther interested 
in it. Completely puzzled and mortified, he would 
now have given up the pursuit, had only his pride 
and his usual wish for conquest been concerned. 
But to feel a passion so violent, that it was prey- 
ing upon his heart; to feel this for the first time in 
his life, and for the only woman whom he was 
pleased in his vanity to think he could not have 
possessed with half the pains that Agnes had 
cost him, was too much for him. The idea 
irritated him; the continual sight of her beauty 
inflamed him ; and he determined to continue 
the pursuit, and to devote his life to its accomplish- 
ment. 

To this pursuit every facility was given by the 
conduct of Trevor, through whose invitations he al- 
most lived at Trevor House. The husband found 
him a most convenient preventive against any argu- 
ments of his wife; and she was glad of his society, 
as it in some degree amused her husband when he 
was at home, and she herself felt a real pleasure in 
its enjoyment. 

Leslie was thus upon the most intimate footing, 
he came and went without announcement; he un- 
dertook a number of things which Trevor ne- 
glected ; at her parties he almost did the honors 
of the master of the house during Ins al^sence, and 
completely established himself in the good graces 
of every other part of the establishment ; while La 
Tour, by his flatteries, his presents, and his pro- 
mises, knew every thing that Flounce could tell 
of the inierieur. Yet, with all these advantages, 
he made no progre.ss beyond that already detailed. He 
had done all he could do, as things stood at present; 
and nothing could enable him to move one step in 
advance, except conveying to her the knowledge 


THE R0U£. 


59 


of his passion, and this he determined at all events 
to do. 

But how, was still his difficulty : for it is not in 
Ens^land as it is in some other countries, where, 
without having thrown off the robe of virtue, they 
wear it so loosely, that it tempts every recreant 
hand to pull it aside, and where no proposal gives 
offence, provided it is made d’une ctriaine ma~ 
nitre et d'un air hien comme il faut. 

He found, too, that he had again miscalculated, 
in supposing that the dissipation which he en- 
couraged, and in the course, of which she saw 
plenty of examples of a conduct very different 
from her own in wives similarly circumstanced, 
would relax any particle of those principles which 
were so strongly imprinted upon her heart. 

All the effect this mode of life had, was for the 
moment diminishing her regret at the disappoint- 
ment she had experienced in Trevor. It relieved 
her ndiid from dwelling too intensely upon the dis- 
appointment, and enabled her to meet the fate of a 
neglected wife with indiffereiice, since she saw 
that the husband was so unworthy of preserving 
her affections. 

Sl>e soon, however, felt still more severely the 
vanity of the life she was leading. It disgusted 
her more and more with those heartless forms and 
ceremonies of society, which seemed to preclude 
the enjoyment of any thing like real friendship; 
and Emily being now absent, and her sister incap- 
able of appreciating these sentiments, the only ad- 
vantage Leslie gained, was that of being the friend 
to whom she sometimes unbosomed herself upon 
these general points of opinion and sentiment. 
This was the utmost extent of the confidence he 
enjoyed ; and so delicious did he find its indulgence, 
that his passion was often on the point of bursting 
from his heart to his lips. 

It was in these conversations, in which she in- 
dulged pretty freely in her animadversions against 
the heartlessness and selfishness of the world, that 
she sometimes lamented the fetters which form and 
ceremony has placed upon the real feelings of hu- 
man nature, and the insensibility that they tended 
to create ; upon this subject he would often lead 
her to talk, in the hope that she might afford some 
opening for himself to pursue it fartlier than she 
intended, so that the blame of some distant hint of 
the state of his feelings might rest with herself and 
not with him. 

He would represent the superior pleasure arising 
from the gratification of those passions which are 
unmixed with the sordid baseness of the world, 
and unalloyed by the chilling forms and laws which 
cold mortals had prescribed. Would launch out 
in general terms against the prescriptions and pre- 
judices of society ; and illustrate these general 
principles by quotations from some of our best 
poets, or by examples of those whose hearts had 
been broken by an adherence to them. 

Such discussions as these held with a woman, 
whose heart was all feeling — whose passions had 
rather been increased than controlled by her edu- 
cation, and who prided herself upon her enlarged 
and unprejudiced notions, were apt to be now and 
then carried farther than the very strict propriety 
would allow, particularly when led by one so art- 
ful and so insidious as Leslie ; who really, in spite 
of the ardor of his passion, had patience enough 


to attempt winning her heart atom by atom ; and 
to recollect, amidst the fervor of his feelings, that 
the stone had at last been worn away by the water 
that fell on it only drop by drop. 

Once, when a conversation of this nature had 
gone to the utmost extent, he dared to press it ; 
he ventured to allude to the delights of what ho 
called the intellectual union of Alfiery and his 
Principessa, of Byron and his Guiccioly. But her 
indignation that the superior spirits of the age 
should degrade and debase their own sentiments 
by liasions which set morals and propriety at de- 
fiance, and thus encourage those inferior talents to 
imitate the vices of genius who were incapable of 
its excellences, soon convinced him how wrongly 
he had calculated upon this point. 

Not all his sophistry of sentiment — not all his 
talk of the communion of souls — the union of in- 
telligence — of spirit meeting spirit — could for a 
moment blind her to the broad fact, that all thess 
feelings degenerated into baseness by such an in- 
tercourse as that to which Leslie had attempted to 
give the character of nobility ; and he saw that if 
such a mind and heart as those of Agnes were 
ever seduced, it must be with her eyes open to the 
wrong she was committing, and an understanding 
perfectly alive to the guilt of her error. 

It required all his tact after this conversation to 
remove an indefinite impression which it had left 
of the laxity of his principles upon these points; 
her proneness, however, to find apologies for any 
thing that seemed to emanate from feeling, enabled 
him to attribute what he had said to his enthusiasm 
for genius, and she became satisfied. 

In large parties, Leslie of course, as the intimate 
of Trevor, found many opportunities of conversing 
with Agnes more alone, in fact, than he could in 
the morning in her own budoir, where there were 
two or three morning visiters. For who has not 
felt the solitude one may create in the midst of a 
crowd when unattended to by the multitude, but 
wholly engrossing and engrossed b}' the one dear 
object of our wishes ! But this was not enough for 
Leslie, because he saw it was not enough for 
Agnes. In conversations between themselves, 
every sentiment that was expressed must be his 
own, and he must be accountable for it; but in 
conversation of a more general nature, he bad the 
art of starting and conducting topics, so that these 
sentiments were elicited from others, and by this 
means he obtained the power of watching the ef- 
fect upon her. On these occasions, too, he had the 
opportunity of showing his own superiority, as 
well as reserving to himself the power of support- 
ing or combating the opinions which she repressed 
He therefore induced Trevor, or rather Mrs. Tre- 
vor, to institute little suppers after the opera and 
the French [day, to which only the Mite of the 
talent of the day were invited. The guests were, 
indeed, chosen for genius more than rank, although 
those in whom these two qualities were united, 
were never absent from these entertainments; 
which might for the strife of wit and intellect vie 
with those petite soupers given by the niece of 
Voltaire, and which were graced by the conversa- 
tion of Diderot, D’Almbert, and the other geniuses 
of that age, which is so well described Ivy Mar- 
montel in his Memoirs. 

Leslie was the life and soul of these parties ; he 


60 


THE ROU^:. 


made himself up for them — read for them, and 
studied for them, and gave vent at night to all 
the information, all the wit, and every thing else 
he had collected in the course of the day; and as 
ho geneially led the conversation, he contrived to 
make all his ammunition tell, and to pass off the 
effect of absolute study as the result of spontaneous 
effusion. 

Nothing could be more exciting to a mind im- 
bued with an enthusiastic admiration of genius 
than these supyiers. It was perpetual excitement 
♦hat Leslie wished to keep up in the mind and 
heart of Agnes ; and he generally contrived to be 
80 pre-eminent in this intellectual gladiatorsliip, so 
prominent in these tournament of wit and intelli- 
gence, as to leave an impression upon the mind of 
Agnes that lasted long after the “ good night,” 
wdiich he had perhayis whispered in her ear imme- 
diately after some pre-eminently successful sally, 
upon which, like a good actor, he had contrived to 
make his exit with effect. 

He thus contrived never to leave her, but with a 
favorable impression of his talents and accomplish- 
ments ; and La Tour always contrived that Flounce 
should have some tale to his advantage, with wliich 
to keep up this impression in her dressing-room. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 


With this sentiment, and with a mind and 
heart that stopped at nothing that could tend to 
the accomplishment of any wish he had formed, it 
is not to be wondered at that Leslie should do 
every thing he could to allure Trevor from his 
home; and, unfortunately for himself and Agnes, 
Trevor was addicted to many proy»ensities which 
kept him abroad, and was easily led to the adoption 
of others, which were not naturally his owm, by 
the “ choice spirits,” as he designated the set by 
whom he was surrounded. 

Wine, cards, every thing that produced a tem- 
porary excitement, by turns, occupied him; and in 
moments of reflection, the consciousness that he 
deserved reproaches from his wife, would make 
him imagine them in her looks, though she did not 
utter them ; and this frequently kept him absent, 
as well as his dissipated habits. 

Just at this period, too, his sister was compelled 
to visit a rich aunt in the country, whither Hartley 
had followed her; so that Trevor had lost the only 
real friends he possessed, and was deprived of 
those who pointed out to him his errors, and the 
manner in which he was trifling with his happi- 
ness. 

In the mean time, Leslie was the constant 
attendant at Mrs. Trevor’s parties, from the large 
route down to the select supper; and every inter- 
view increased his passion for her, and strength- 
ened his determination, by some means or other, 
to make her his. 

He felt that he was gaining ground in her es- 
teem, and that she probably appreciated his talents ; 


but further than this, his tact tangh him he had ae 
yet nothing to hope. He calculated, however, on 
her husband’s neglect, on her youth and inexperi- 
ence, and upon the romantic turn of her disposi- 
tion, at some period or other operating in his favor, 
and he went on. 

It w'as after one of the parties at Trevor House, 
when, either from a greater degree of excitement, 
or from his rapidly-increasing passion, Leslie had 
devoted himself even more than usual to its fair 
hostess, that he lingered the last of the gay as- 
semblage, and still seemed unwilling to depart. 
She had been more than usually animated ; and 
had never appeared so surpassingly lovely in the 
eyes of Leslie, as she had that evening. 

He hat! spent hours with his eyes scarcely re- 
moved from the contemplation of her form and 
features ; and his imagination had become so in- 
flamed by the ardor of his wishes, that his pas- 
sion was more than once on the point of bursting 
from his heart. 

He had hung ppon every accent that fell from 
her lips — h^ had watched every movement of her 
graceful form — he had contemplated her charms so 
intensely, that he was almost maddened by the idea 
of how very far he still was from the accomplish- 
ment of his object; and from the remembrance, 
that a being who had thus the power to engross 
his whole soul should belong to another. 

With this idea, in addition to the other passions 
by which he was agitated, a deadly hatred to Tre- 
vor sprung up in his heart. 

His imagination pictured this being as Trevor’s 
fond and indulgent wife — gall and wormwood were 
sw’eetness in comparison with this idea ; and he re- 
joiced that his arts had thus* so far estranged him 
from his home, that he had seldom the mortifica- 
tion, or, as it was now become agony, of seeing 
them together. 

Carriage after carriage was announced ; party 
after party rolled away ; yet Leslie could not bring 
his mind to the sepparation. He seemed rivitted 
to the spot. He had never before felt how neces- 
sary the possession of Agnes seemed to his very 
existence. He had never before felt the powerful 
hold she had obtained over his imagination ; and 
he inwardly swore that nothing should prevent the 
accomplishment of his end. 

As he felt the fire of her soul-sparkling glance 
which fell upon him, it seemed to light up an in- 
extinguishable flame, which nothing but possession 
— full possession — could quench. 

Once or tw'ice be almost determined to wait till 
everybody was gone, declare his passion, call to her 
mind all the neglects and injuries she suffered from 
Trevor, and throw himself upon her mercy. 

He had yet, however, sufficient presence of mind 
to perceive, that though she treated him kindly 
she was not yet ripe for such a declaration at this. 
He felt that it was to hazard all ; and all 'was too 
much tor him to hazard. Yet, at the moment that 
he touched her hand, in his almost breathless adieu, 
and felt the effect of that momentary collision 
through all his veins, again did his impetuous heart 
rush to his throat — again did the words of passion 
rise to his lips. But he still had sufficient command 
over himself to refrain, though his eye spoke vo- 
lumes of master-passion of his soul. 

He rushed down the staircase, and leaping into 


THE ROUfi. 


61 


his cabriolet, applied the lash to his spirited horse> 
and felt a momentary relief in the daring dexterity 
with which he threaded the maze of carriages 
which still remained. 

Who that has passed an evening with a heloved 
object, has not felt that vacum of heart which oc- 
curs at parting! This is terrible, even where the 
love is mutual : how much more so must it be, 
when we madly love a woman who is in the pos- 
session of another, and the hour comes when we 
must not only quit this object, but leave her in the 
arms of one whom an illicit passion has made 
a rival ! 

This harrowing thought pressed upon the mind 
of Leslie. He hated Trevor for having possessed 
himself of Agnes; despised him for his neglect of 
such a woman ; and laughed at the idea, that 
by estranging him from his wife, he was in part 
allaying the fever of his own feelings. Trevor 
was not yet at home. He might be at the club in 
time to prevent his returning till the morning; 
the idea that they might not meet that night was a 
temporary alleviation to the tortures of his heart, 
and he dashed down to St. James’s street, his horse 
all foam ; and his groom, fearless as he w^as in 
general, panting from fright at the hair-breadth 
turnings, and close approximations of the cabriolet 
to posts and carriages in its progress. 

Leslie’s quick eye caught a sight of Trevor, 
rushing down the steps of his club-house. 

He started from the cabriolet. “Trevor, Trevor, 
my boy, whither so fast]” 

“Home, or to the devil?” exclaimed Trevor: 
“ though I think I am running away from the 
latter in quitting this d — d place, where the devil 
and all his imps seem to have taken up their 
lodgings in those cursed dice.” 

“ What, man, has lost a few guineas; and art 
grumbling with Fortune, by way of courting her 
favors ?” 

“ A few guineas ! Thousands would not pay 
my losses of these last two hours; and as to 
Fortune — changeable they may say she is, but to 
me she seems immutably the same slippery jade, 
and r could find in my heart to renounce her for 
ever,” said Trevor. 

“ Tush, tush, man !” — Is this Trevor 1 the gay 
Trevor — the envy and the example of us all] 
Nonsense : come back, try your luck again ; and 
take my voucher, Leslie’s voucher, that thou shalt 
prove this jade as capricious as the rest of her sex, 
whom both of us know never refuse their favors to 
those who persevere in their pursuit. 

“ Come, come ;” and Leslie pressed his re- 
turn. 

“No, Leslie, no; I have already lost more 
to-night than I can conveniently pay,” said Trevor, 
despondingly. 

“ Pay — Trevor !” — and a thought flashed across 
the ever-plotting mind of Leslie. “ Pay ! And 
have you no friend — no Leslie, with an unincum- 
bered estate, and a round sum at his banker’s; 
and is it necessary for him to say that any sum he 
wants is at Trevor’s command ]” and he grasped 
his hand with all the apparent fervor of the 
sincerest friendship. Trevor hesitated : Leslie pur- 
sued the advantage — drew his arm within his, and 
they re-entered the club-house. 

“ Come, come, a thousand or two may redeem 


all that you have lost,” said Leslie, “ and give yoU 
your revenge upon the winners. Bring some 
Champagne — no, no. Burgundy, Burgundy. Come, 
man,” in a half whisper, “ don’t let these fellows 
see that you are annoyed. They are cursed im- 
pertinent, prying fellows, with all their civility ; 
and are the first to tell some scoundrel of an editor 
of the losses of men of spirit.” 

The Burgundy was brought ; and bumber after 
bumper followed each other down the throat, and 
into the head of Trevor. Leslie wrote a draft for 
five thousand, which be forced upon his friend, 
taking a simple memorandum of the transaction, 
and then led him up stairs. 

Below, there was mirth, and conversation, and 
laughter. Politics, scandal, all the topics of the 
day, were discussed over the little elegant rapjytis 
and superb wines which were served in this em- 
perium of luxury. But up stairs all was silent. 
Nothing was heard but the quick rattle of the dice 
on the box, before they rolled silently on the well 
stuffed green cloth ; the fall of the cards upon the 
tables, the passing of counters, and now and then, 
to an attentive listener, the but half-suppressed 
execration of some infatuated wretch who tried in 
vain to turn fortune in his favor. 

This, however, was but seldom the case. Every 
one here was too well bred to give any other ex- 
pression to feelings of this nature than that which 
was conveyed by an increasing paleness of the 
cheek, the knitting of the brow, or the stern com- 
pression of the lip, whose nervous irritation, how- 
ever, too plainly bespoke the agitation of the heart 
within. But perhaps the most striking expression 
of this feeling is exhibited the attempt to smile olf 
the agony of a loss, when the lips refuse to obey 
the wish of their owmer, and curl into an expression 
of bitterness instead of mirth, and, becoming pale, 
too plainly speak the pang experienced by the 
heart beneath. The Burgundy, the five thousand, 
the sight of the dice, the table, and the bank, re- 
called the inclination of Trevor to play ; and he 
placed himself beside Leslie again to tempt his for- 
tune. 

Leslie, who was never a gambler, threw only 
for small stakes. His object w^as not gain ; money 
was nothing to him but as it aided him in the prin- 
cipal pursuit of his life. He had, unfortunately for 
himself and others, plenty of it for this purpose 
and perhaps the dread of diminishing such a power- 
ful auxilliary, as much as any thing else, had de- 
terred him from courting the excitement of the 
gaming table. 

As a man of pleasure and of observation too, he 
had not failed to observe how little this pursuit 
tended to his ideas of enjoyment ; and when he cast 
his eyes around the table at which he was n<»w 
seated, and observed the careworn and anxious 
features of young and handsome men of his own 
age, he congratulated himself on the pursuit of 
objects which left no such traces on his owm 
cheeks, whatever they might do on those of his 
victims. 

The play had on this evening been more than 
usually deep, and the bank as usual very success- 
ful. Just at the moment, however, of Trevor’s re- 
entrance, fortune had seemed inclined to change, 
and some large sums had just been won by the 
players. This, together with the Burgundy, and 


62 


THE ROUE. 


winning two or three stakes, encouraged Trevor 
to proceed with spirit, or, in other words^ with des- 
peration, for the spirit of a gambler is despera- 
tion. 

Imagining fortune to have really changed in his 
favor, and unwilling to balk it, urged on, too, by 
Leslie, he placed a large stake on the table, and 
threw out ; he doubled it on the next throw, and 
again lost. Thinking the bank again in favor 
with fortune, and the next thrower being notori- 
ously unlucky, he again doubled his last stake ; 
and, to make more certain, removed it to one of 
those portions of the table that were appropriated 
in favor of the bank. The money was scarce re- 
moved, before the unlucky thrower, for the first 
time in his life, threw in; and the last of Leslie’s 
five thousand was swept away to increase the 
hoard of the presiding Plutus of the place. 

Leslie, whose eye had watched every move- 
ment of Trevor with something of the avidity 
with which a spider contemplates a fly that has 
ventured in his web, had kept a mental account of 
his losses ; and, going to a side table, had written 
and changed another draft, the amount of which 
he slipped into Trevor’s hand. 

The players were now dispersing, excepting a 
few of the most desperate. Some of them sought 
in another bumper of champagne, or ponche d la 
Rornaine, to drive away the agony of repentance 
at any rate till the morning. A few hours of oblivion 
were cheaply purchased at the expense of their 
senses; and, alas ! how many have awakeired from 
this oblivion but to find ruin staring them in the 
face, and to seek a more permanent forgetfulness in 
poison or a pistol ! 

Trevor hesitated : but Leslie throwing a large 
stake on the table and winning it, he derived fresh 
courage; and at this moment, the dice being in the 
hands of the gentleman whom the bank had de- 
clared to be the last thrower for the night, several 
desperate losers emptied their note cases on the table. 
Trevor, by a sudden impulse, almost convulsively 
grasped the whole of the notes just given him by Les- 
lie, and, putting his hand on the table, seemed ready 
to place the whole at the hazard of the die. A 
momentary, and almost involuntary hesitation, ap- 
peared to cross his mind. Every eye was upon 
him: he saw that he was observed; and the fear 
of ridicule which was his bane, came over him, and 
he dropped the whole upon the table. 

From this moment his eye was involuntarily 
fixed upon the thrower, wdth an intenseness of 
which he was insensible. This gentleman had a 
very trifling stake upon the table; and Trevor could 
have cursed him bitterly for the insensibility with 
which he gathered up the dice, and turned them 
once or twice between his finger and thumb, before 
he put them into the box. 

Large stakes were on the table ; the last hopes 
of several players l.'iy before them to be decided in 
an instant. The bank itself could not view the 
chances unmoved. All was silent; excepting the 
hard breathing of two or three who were on the 
point of being ruined, while they were yet too in- 
experienced to conceal their feelings. Trevor’s 
heart beat audibly. Leslie, as he quietly and 
calmly contemplated the scene before him, heard it 
beat; and his intemperate thoughts wandered to 
the heart against which, at that very moment, it 


might have been beating with pleasure; and he j 
smiled scornfully and hated him. 

The gentleman who held the box, and who was ! 
a pale, elderly person, with a kind of sleepless eye 
that spoke the continuity of his nightly vigils, and i 
whose few silvery hairs, and quiet placidity amidst 1 
the wreck of fortune, bespoke the experienced i 
gambler, still playing with dice, as though in 
mockery of the intense anxiety by which he was ' 
surrounded. Trevor’s lips almost moved to the 
curses which his heart dictated. 

Then again would the delay create a hope ; and 
a sudden feeling came over him, that if the thrower 
would call “ d sept'' he would win, almost forced 
him to prompt the call. ' 

At length the box was held up. Every eye was 1 
intently fixed upon the thrower; every heart beat '] 
high with mingled fear and expectation : the im- i 
pression was too intense to admit of such a quiet ■ 
feeling as that of hope. 

“ A cinq'' uttered the placid old gentleman ; out ^ 
rolled the dice listlessly on the table. “ Onze'' t 
cried the croupier; the bank swept in the heaps of | 
money w'hich by this throw bad become their pro- | 
perty ; and Trevor had the double misery of know- 
ing that his anticipation of “ d sept " would have 
won, and the loss of his very large stake into the 
bargain. Of the amount of this last stake he was ; 
not aware, till the banker unfolded the notes before „ 
he gathered them up; and every one was aston- ^ 
ished at the extent of the sum. | 

As his money was swept away, and he turned i 
from the table, a sickness came over his heart that | 
made him lean, for a moment, on Leslie for sup-»’ ■ 
port; but he rallied instantly, and calling for pen ** 
and ink and more Burgundy, he gave Leslie his j 
acknowledgment for the money he had lent him, and 
swallowed bumper after bumper so quickly, ‘that ' 
his brain was soon insensible to the loss he had 
sustained, and to the anticipations of his repentance. 

As their carriages were gone, Leslie desired one 
of the waiters to call a hackney-coach; into this 
he led Trevor, he convulsively grasped his hand at ^ 
parting, calling him, in the little articulation which 
the wine had left him, his “ best friend." 

Leslie directed the coachman to the house of 

Trevor’s opera dancer in Street, saw him i 

drive away, then casting his eyes up to the dark 
clouds which were rcdling rapidly through the skies 
as though they were chased by the fast-coming 
morning, he laughed aloud, and strode away from 
the steps of this “ temple of ruin,” hugging him- 
self with the idea that he had mounted another step 
of the ladder he was determined to ascend. Trevor 
would be in his power: perhaps a succession 
of such nights might — what might it not do 1 
Thus thought Leslie: but then, it would not he to ' 
her mind, to her heart, to her inclination, that he 
owed her. Well, no matter; she will be mine 1 
And in that idea every other was absorbed. 

As he strode, rather than walked, dowm Picca- 1 
dilly — for his passions, though in abeyance to the | 
motives which had induced him so calmly to watch J 
Trevor, were not allayed — his mental colloquy was ^ 
interrupted by a herd of those poor, desolate, and , 
houseless wretches, who way-lay the midnight ; 
passengers in the neighborhood of the clubs with 
clamorous mendicity, or wdth disgusting invita- 
tions. 


THE ROUE. 


Tired of their intrusion, and to get rid of their 
importunity, Leslie scattered a handful of silver on 
the pavement, whiqh soon occupied the attention 
of the whole of the miserable crowd save one, 
who, as the gas-light gtearned on his countenance 
while in the act of throwing the money, fixed her 
eyes upon his face, and, quitting the hope of shar- 
ing the spoil with her companions, continued to 
follow him. She was evidently in a state of ex- 
treme intoxication and her talk was a mixture of 
maudlin invitation and of dreadful imprecation. 
Two or three times he was compelled to shake her 
from his arm, and attempted without stopping, to 
prevail upon her to desist ; but as she still con- 
tinued to persecute him, he turned upon her, and 
threatened that, unless she quitted him, he should 
be compelled to place her under the care of the 
watchman. 

A frantic laugh was the only reply she made to 
this threat ; a laugh that seemed to thrill to his 
very heart. He attempted to pass on, when she 
suddenly seized his arm, and, with a frightful 
energy, before he could summon nerve and strength 
enough to resist, she dragged him to a lamp-post, 
and placed him in such a j)osition that the light 
gleamed full upon her countenance. 

She appeared to be of the lowest order of the 
lowest prostitutes. Her dress was covered with 
mud, and half torn from her shoulders in the strug- 
gles or quarrels of intoxication ; a red handker- 
chief but half covered a breast which hung loosely 
over stays that seemed to be unfastened behind ; 
she wore a dirty straw bonnet, decorated with a 
gaudy-colored ribband hanging at the back of her 
head, while a cap attempted in vain to confine a 
profusion of hair that hung dishevelled, matted, 
and tangled, over her naked shoulders and neck. 
Her eyes glared wildly, with a mixed expression 
of intoxication and passion ; her cheeks were 
swelled and bloated, and tinged with a purple 
hue. 

“ Tell me,” said she, in a voice which agitation 
rendered almost inaudible, “ tell me, 1 say ; 
answer me — ” 

“Wbatl” said Leslie; what want ye wo- 
man!” 

“ I want a man — no, no, no ; not a man — ” her 
voice for a moment softened — “ a villain ! a dam- 
ned villain ! a — a — a — the struggle between her 
memory and intoxication seemed to impede the 
utterance of her thoughts. Leslie attempted to 
free himself from her; this roused her in a mo- 
ment. 

“ Tell me,” exclaimed she, “ is not your name — ” 
she paused, seemed to be diving into her memory 
for something which had escaped her, and then 
suddenly thundered out — “ Leslie ] aye, that is 
it, Leslie 1 Is not your name Leslie 1 ” 

Astonished, half alarmed by her frantic vehe- 
mence, thrown off his guard by the suddenness of 
such an unexpected appeal, Leslie, in the hurry of 
the moment, answered — “ No.” 

She gazed at him for a moment, as if in doubt. 
Her energy seemed to have sobered her ; and as 
the effects of intoxication passed away, the expres- 
sion of recognition which had before so strongly 
characterized her inquiring glance, was no longer 
visible. She dropped his hand ; and, with an im- 
precation, exclaiming, “ I am mistaken,” turned 


63 


suddenly up one of the courts in the neighborhood» 
and was out of sight in an instant. 

Leslie himself could not account for the indefin- 
able sensation which had made him, almost in- 
voluntarily, deny his name. The whole circum- 
stance had been so sudden, so unexpected, that she 
was out of sight before he could sufficiently recall 
to his senses eitner to question or pursue her. Yet 
it was in vain that he attempted to banish the oc- 
currence from his memory; he therefore turned 
home, to forget that and himself in the temporary 
oblivion of sleep. 




CHAPTER XXV. 


Leslie’s dreams this night were disturbed. He 
knew not why a circumstance that might have 
arisen from mere accident should make such a deep 
impression upon his mind — but so it was. Whether 
the excitement of the whole evening had rendered 
his heart and brain more sensitive than usual, and 
that this occurrence had acted as a climax upon his 
excited feelings, he could not tell ; but he passed a 
night of feverish dreaming. His eyes were scarcely 
closed, when woman appeared to him in all her 
native loveliness. First it was Agnes, with all 
the charms that had maddened his heart and brain. 
He saw her moving among her guests, the loveliest 
of them all — the “ observed of all observers” — the 
admiration of his sex — the envy of her own ; and 
yet insensible to any thing but the idea of giving 
pleasure, and of meriting the admiration she ex- 
cited. Then his loose imagination pictured her 
under other circumstances, as warmed into a corre- 
sponding passion to his owm. Her eyes, as reply- 
ing to the passionate glances with which his own 
dared to gaze upon her charms. Every look 
seemed to speak a yielding voluptuousness that 
made his heart ready to burst from his bosom with 
its beatings. Suddenly she became transformed. 
All her traits of beauty were turned into deformi- 
ties; her mind was madness; and the beautiful 
Agnes Trevor, by gradual metamorphosis, seemed 
to become the wretched prostitute who had arrested 
his progress in the street. 

He started from his sleep. Cold drops of per- 
spiration stood upon his forehead ; every limb was 
convulsed, and his firm nerves trembled. He 
quitted his bed, and sought in the action of his 
body some relief for his mind. But it was in vain 
that he altered his position — in vain he paced his 
apartment — in vain he seized on a book, in the 
hope of diverting his attention. For the first time 
he felt the inefficacy of his own resolution ; and 
longed for the day as much as the murderer, who 
thinks himself haunted by his victim, and that no- 
thing but the light of morning, “^with its pale and 
ineffectual fires,” can drive the spirit to the dark 
shades which it has quitted to torment him. 

However innocent a life may be passed, there are 
few of us that have not experienced such a night 
as this ; few of us that, in the darkness of soli- 


¥ 


64 


THE ROUE. 


tude, have not trembled, and wished that light which 
was to dissolve some distorted picture of the imagi- 
nation, and again to usher us into activity and 
society. 

In these dark hours of solitude, the memory 
paints the past, and anticipation illustrates the fu- 
ture, with colors peculiarly prominent — colors that 
vanish as the light of day prelents other objects 
to our contemplation, to divide our more serious 
thoughts with the various occurrences of life. 

Leslie, who laughed at superstition, and at religion, 
which he called by that name, had never, till this 
moment, experienced such sensations as those 
which now agitated him, and a hundred times he 
cursed the folly that made him wait so impatiently 
for daylight. At length it came, rendering indeed 
“pale and ineffectual” all the gas with which his 
square was illuminated. He threw up his sash 
to welcome the appearance, and the fresh morning 
air seemed to act as a soother to his brain. He 
threw himself on a couch, and slept quietly till La 
Tour entered his room, who was surprised to find 
his master on the couch instead of the bed : but, 
like a prudent valet, he made no observation on so 
unusual a circumstance. Leslie was still in some 
state of excitement ; his mind had not yet recovered 
its proper tone ; he could not sit down coolly to 
his morning avocations of billet-doux, and other 
“trifles light as air,” in which it was the pride of 
his philosophy to pass his life. 

Agnes was gaining such a paramount interest 
in his heart, that for the first time he began to feel 
that love, wdiich he had hitherto only dissembled or 
played with, would prove in verity the tyrant which 
poets have made him. 

The announcement of Trevor, as the name 
accorded with every thought and with every feel- 
ing of his soul, gave a fillip to the state of mind in 
W'hich he found himself. It was a name associated 
with the most sanguine wishes of his heart; and 
though the bearer of it, from being the possessor 
of the woman he adored, was hateful to him, 
yet he was welcome, as forming one of the step- 
ping stones to the accomplishment of his wishes. 
In short, every thing connected with Agnes had a 
charm about it that was irresistable to his imagi- 
nation. 

Trevor’s countenance was pale, and his step 
unsteady. His eye seemed to bend beneath the 
glance of Leslie ; he felt himself a debtor for 
more than he could conveniently pay; and what 
man, placed for the first time in this situation, can 
face his creditor unabashed! 

After the first salutations, a few curses at the 
wine, and at the club, Trevor asked Leslie if 
he knew how much he had lent him. 

“ Oh, no !” said Leslie ; “ I keep no account 
of such trifles: there are your acknowledgements, 
and my banker’s draft will tell if they are correct ; 
for you know I never change a draft for myself at 
ihe cursed place.” 

The hastily and drunkenly- scrawled acknow- 
ledgments, were produced, and on being examined, 
were found to amount to several thousands more 
than Trevor had anticipated. 

After the acknowledgements had been produced, 
and the amount ascertained, Trevor confessed his 
inability to discharge them without having recourse 
to means which would add greatly to his losses, 


and indeed even those means were not immediately 
available, as the “ law’s delay, and the insolence of 
office,” were to be conquered before the cash could 
be forthcoming. 

Leslie had gratified that dislike of feeling to 
Trevor which his passion for his wife had been 
gradually creating, hy thus reducing him to ask a 
pecuniary favor. He had now another game to play, 
and that was the generous one, that should attach 
Trevor to him by the ties of gratitude as strongly 
as he was now attached by tho»e of admiration. 

“ Why, my dear Trevor, what the devil ails 
you!” said he; “you look as forlorn and wo- 
begone, and as frightened at me as if I were some 
unfortunate dun, who had been knocking single 
knocks at the brass lion at your door for the past 
six months, and had been let in at last through the 
stupidity of your porter. What are a few thou- 
sands among friends? — There — there go the ac- 
knowledgements into my desk — call for them when 
you please — I have really more money than I 
know what to do with ; and my only plague is, 
that my steward and my lawyer are perpetually 
urging me to put it out to interest — and now 
I will take their advice, my dear Trevor,” assuming 
an air of cordial friendship. “ I will put it out at 
the best of all interests, and will consider myself as 
usuriously paid, if my nioney enables me to prove 
my friendship for you.” 

Trevor would have thanked him ; but Leslie 
stopped him with — “ nonsense, man ! what is the 
utility of money to such prudent, thrifty creatures 
as I am, if it were not that it enables us to supply 
the occasional wants of generous spirited fellows 
like yourself?” 

There was a little satire in this remark that 
grated upon Trevor’s ears; but this feeling im- 
mediately subsided, when Leslie continued ; “But, 
Trevor, I am afraid you don’t recollect that I was 
not your only creditor last night. That devil- 
told me that the three last throws before my 
arrival at his cursed place were sccjed to your 
account. I must not heave you in his hands. So 
there, there’s another draft — clear that score im- 
mediately : for I would not leave the character 
of my worst enemy in that fellow’s hands for an 
hour for the universe. Pay him, and the devil will 
swear you are a god ; but owe the rascal a guinea, 
and though you may have raised him from a dung- 
hill to a palace, there is not an epithet in the 
whole vocabulary of abuse that he will not lavish 
upon you. So now, my dear fellow, au revoir, for 
I have schemes — schemes, my boy, that you know 
nothing of. So away, till the evening bring the 
hours of carelessness and champagne.” y 

Trevor took his leave, lightened in heart, and > 
impressed with more than admiration of the cha- ■ 
racter which, like an ignis fatuus, was leading him ^ 
to ruin ; little thinking the schemes he had left him j 
to meditate were against his own honor and the vir- J 
tue of his wdfe. 

Another step, thought Leslie, and began to. 
toilettise, that he might be in readiness to meet fl 
Agnes in every street through which she drove, j 
He really began to feel existence only in her pre- 
sence, and he sought it every where. 

It was the business of his life to ascertain all 
her engagements, and to follow or meet her through- 
out them all ; he was generally in the w'ay to hand 


THE R0U£ 


65 


her from her carriage wherever she stopped — he was 
sure to be at Andrew’s ready to point out the last new 
publications. He was at the side of her carriage in the 
Park, and the evening of course threw them to- 
gether, from the circumstance of their moving in 
the same circle of society. 

Strolling with the intent of watching her car- 
riage in the line leading from Pall Mall to the top 
of Bond street, that great exchange of fashion, 
where one is sure to meet every body that is worth 
meeting, he was joined by one or two of the offi- 
cers on guard, and by a young life-guardsman ; and 
while they were discussing the high play of the 
overnight, and comparing notes as to winnings 
and losings, the life-guardsman suddenly exclaimed, 
M By G — here comes Slashing Nan; now, if she 
is primed with what she calls a flash of light- 
ning, a pretty batch of oaths will she let fly at 
us.” 

Leslie’s eye turned in the direction pointed out 
by the speaker, and to his almost horror, saw the 
same woman who had addressed him under such 
curious circumstances the previous night, and who 
had left such a painful impression upon his 
mind. 

She was no longer, however, the furious being 
she had then appeared ; she no longer strode along 
with rapid strides, but moved slowly and sullenly. 
Her dress had been temporarily repaired, but still 
retained the dirt of the mud in which she had been 
rolled overnight. Her bonnet was slouched down 
over the face. Her gown w^as tied up almost 
as high as the arm-pits, with a red sash, and 
the looseness of her waist proclaimed that there 
was no confinement of stays ; one foot was slip- 
shod, showing the heel of a very dirty stocking, 
and part of a petticoat quite as dirty peeped from 
under her gown ; a Belcher handkerchief w’as 
tied round her throat, and an apology for a pair of 
gloves was upon her hands. 

She approached the party ; but looked neither to 
the right nor to the left. 

“ No,” exclaimed the person who had pointed 
her out, “ she is in the sullens — the flash is out of 
her — poor Nan is not up yet.” 

As she approached, Leslie half trembled ; he 
dreaded her attacking him again the moment she 
rame near enough to see his face ; and though her 
knowing his name must have been merely acci- 
dental, yet in his epicurean system he had steered 
so clear oi contact with anything like the contami- 
nation of prostitution, that he dreaded laying him- 
self open even to the suspicion that he could 
be known to such a creature as that before him. 

There was likewise in the presence of this 
unfortunate and degraded creature a feeling created 
in his mind approaching to dread, for which he 
could not account, and which was indeed utterly 
inexplicable to himself. 

He was glad therefore to see that she passed 
them without any signs of recognition, and strolled 
on, perfectly unconscious of their persons, or of 
their observations on her. 

When he no longer dreaded her recognition 
of him, Leslie carelessly asked his companion what 
he knew of her. 

“ Faith,” replied the guardsman, “ all I know is, 
that our men call her the ‘ slasher,’ and that some- 
firaes, when the blue-ruin has done its work, we 


have had her into the barracks, to give a few of us 
lessons in slang. The curious thing about her is, 
that till she is drunk, she is dull and sullen as you 
see her now% and is never, they say, heard to 
swear; but the moment the liquor mounts to her 
brain, she seems inspired, and utters rhapsodies, 
mingled wdth wit, obscenity and blasphemy, that, 
at the moment they proclaim what a she-devil she 
is, show plainly enough that she must have had a 
very superior education. By G — d it was but last 
night she puzzled the chaplain at his own weapons, 
and made him knock under.” 

Strange, thought Leslie, that men bearing the 
title and holding the station of gentlemen should 
admit even of the momentary society of such a 
creature as this! and little think those delicate 
creatures, those finished pieces of Nature’s work- 
manship, that adorn society, that the hand which 
leads them through a quadrille, and the lips that 
whisper soft nonsense in their ears, have been 
within a few short hours prostituted to such pur- 
poses as these, and in contact with the most 
degraded creatures of vice and profligacy. 

How few women know what men really are ! 

Still perplexed at her knowing his name, he 
determined to speak to her. He accordingly au 
revoird his companions, and forgetting even Agnes 
for a moment, followed in the same direction, 
keeping the object of his curiosity in sight. 

As she went through the palace, and passed the 
sentinels and several other soldiers, she was greeted 
with some slang recognition from each ; of these 
salutations, however, she took no notice, but 
walked on with an appearance of utter insensi- 
bility. 

Leslie passed her, and looked full into her face, 
but she betrayed no sign of recognition — all was 
apathy. At length, arriving at a solitary part of 
the park, he suddenly turned and stopped her. 

She gazed on his face unconsciously. 

“ My good woman,” said Leslie, “ do you know 
me 1 nay, don’t turn your eyes away, but 
look at me steadily, and tell me if you know 
me. 

The creature seemed to be called to a slight de- 
gree of consciousness; her vacant blue and glazed 
eye fell upon his features, then seemed to peruse 
his person, as the question had been understood; 
but it soon resumed its unconscious expression, as 
shaking her head, she said, slowly, and as though 
she had hardly the power of utterance, ‘‘No, no; 
how should I know you.” 

“Did you ever see me before]” continued 
Leslie. 

Again the same unconscious stare, and a shake 
of the head, indicated a negative. 

During this short colloquy, Leslie attempted to 
trace in her swollen and livid features something 
to guide him in the solution of the mystery ; but 
the glassy eye — the sunken cheek, except when 
swollen by violence or intemperance — the livid 
brow — the streaks of carmine which still remained, 
rendering the death-like white of the other part of 
her face still more appalling and conspicuous, gave 
him no clue to the problem: all appeared utterly 
unknown. There seemed not to he a single re- 
collection in his mind connected with the features 
before him, bloated and disfigured as they were by 
intemperance. 


66 


THE ROUE. 


He again bade her look upon him, and asked if 
phe knew his name; but still received a negative. 
Her look, however, this time betrayed impatience, 
and that nervous irratibility which was annoyed 
by a cessation from action. 

He gave her some loose silver, and quitted 
her; convinced in his mind from this proof, 
that her utterance of his name on the preceding 
evening must have been the result of mere acci- 
dent. 

As for the woman, she received the money with 
an insensibility that seemed to betray almost an ig- 
norance of its use; and without even any expres- 
sion of thanks, pursued her way in silence. This 
colloquy had greatly relieved Leslie; and he 
laughed at the interest which he had suffered such 
a circumstance to create in his mind, and called 
himself a fool for the uneasiness which he had 
permitted it to give him during the preceding 
night. 

He banished the whole affair therefore from his 
mind ; and gave himself up entirely to the passion 
of Agnes, and to the scheme he was projecting for 
the accomplishment of his wishes. 

La Tour was made acquainted with the whole 
of the transactions of the last night, as well as 
with the arrangements between his master and 
Trevor in the morning : this information, with cer- 
tain little addenda furnished by the prolific imagi- 
nation of the Frenchman, was immediately conveyed 
to Flounce, whose indignation against her master, 
which was continually kept alive by La Tour, 
would immediately induce her to carry the story to 
her lady. 

Flounce had lived with Agnes from a child, and 
had therefore many more privileges than a common 
fcmme-dt-chambrt ; but Agnes was very peremp- 
tory in stopping her, when in these fits of indigna- 
tion against Trevor and of admiration of Leslie, 
she wmuld trespass upon these privileges, by 
inveighing against the one and praising the 
other. 

In spite, however, of these interdictions, and of 
her lady’s anger. Flounce contrived always to say 
enough to leave a general impression on the mind 
of her lady of the imprudence of her husband, and 
of the generosity of his friend ; and these impres- 
sions were not without their efiect upon a mind 
keenly alive to everything that resembled noble- 
ness of conduct, as well as to everything that 
tended to the abasement of the human mind. 
Those which w'ere received in favor of Le.slie, were 
likewise greately increased by the generous manner 
in which he always appeared to excuse the aber- 
rations of Trevor; and by his never mentioning or 
alluding, in the slighest degree, to his own share 
in any of the transactions in which he was ap- 
parently so honorably implicated. 

All these circumstances induced a dangerous con- 
fidence on her part, her former dread and conteinjit 
of his character was rapidly changing into admira- 
tion at the discovery of such unexpected qualities, 
her distrust was fast vanishing; and she felt esteem 
and friendship growing in its place. 

Leslie marked, this and rejoiced : he saw al- 
though no direct way w’as open te the accomplish- 
ment of his wishes — to the gaining of her love ; 
yet by these indirect means he might gradually 
attain his ends. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


LESLIE TOVILLARS. 


Fret), my dear Fred, congratulate me. I have 
spent the whole morning with her, and am to gc 
to the Opera with her — to the Opera. And is this 
all, methinks, I hear you sayl Is it the gallant, 
the successful Leslie, that makes this a subject of 
congratulation 1 After months of attendance, 
after the millions of sighs, and all the et-cetra of 
an ardent pursuit — it is come to this, that Leslie, 
the irresistible Leslie, thinks it matter of congra- 
tulation that he is to go to the Opera wdth a woman 
whom he has pursued for months 1 and yet so 
it is. 

To go tete-d’tete with a woman to her box, is 
always a step gained. — It admits you to a kind &f 
domesticity, which can never be had any whers 
but in an opera-box, or a boudoir, or — somewhere 
else : and you know, Fred, the delicious public 
privacy of a box at our opera ; a place where one 
may say any thing, aye, and do any thing, il 
people permit it. Eh, Villarsl 

Oh! Fred, Fred! with what a thousand re- 
collections is that opera house associated ! Do you 
think the groves of Arcadia ever witnessed so 
many vows as the painted canvass of that theatre 1 
Do you think that the notes of the far-famed 
nightingale ever w^arbled over so many lovers as 
those of the Italian cantatrices have done, from 
Mara down to Pasta 1 or, dost think that any 
bower in the world, decorated wdth seats of sweet 
brier and roses (devilish uncomfortable seats, by the 
bye, unless the thorns are extracted,) and sur- 
rounded by myrtle and eglantine, ever witnessed so 
many yielding hearts and lovers’ vows (both of 
them sometimes broken,) and other things apper- 
taining thereto, as the lawyers say, as those boxes 
have, with their red silk curtains, calico linings, 
chaises-ZoTigues, urn] cane bottomed chairs! De- 
pend upon it, Fred, in spite of romance and poetry 
that the opera-box carries it all in nothing. By 
the bye, Fred, never while you live have a looking- 
glass in your opera-box — I’ll tell you why some 
other time. 

Your poets may talk of Arcadian bowers, and 
beds of roses, and solitary groves, and nightingales ; 
and may trumpet forth all the paraphernalia of a 
common-place pastoral; but give me an opera-box 
to make love in. 

Don’t you remember Mrs. D. F always said 

she should never have been guilty of her impru- 
dence with H , — imprudence I I love a wo- 

man’s definition — don’t you? it beats .fohnson, 
doesn’t it ? — if her husband had never permitted 
her to have an opera-box ; and this was so strongly 
impressed upon her mind, that her lover had ac- 
tually formed the idea of pleading this dangerous 
indulgence of her husband in mitigation of damages; 
and would actually have done so, but that his coun- 
sel advised that in such case the proprietors of the 
opera might have a fiiir ground of action against 
him, from the mischief the expose might do the 
theatre. And yet Trevor himself proposed my ao 


w 


THE ROUfi. 


67 


companying his wife; therefore, whatever happens 
must be attributed to him — mustn’t it ? — Imagine 
me, therefore, domesticated in her box the whole 
evening, hien niche, as the French have it, behind 
the curtain ; but though niche, any thing but a 
statue. And were I a statue, it would in her presence 
only be to realize a story, like that of Pygmalion ; 
and Agnes would be the goddess of beauty, to 
infuse into me the life and fire and pleasure of 
existence. 

Isn’t it strange, Fred, that I, who know the sex 
so well, who have studied its weakness only to in- 
crease my own strength, and its strength only to 
reduce it to weakness, should, during such an age 
of close attendance, have made so little impression; 
Yet, so it is. As yet there is nothing but an inci- 
jxient friendship; a kind of very Platonic sympathy, 
that has not even amounted to a spark, which one 
might hope to bellows into a future flame. But 
Platonic love does not answer our purpose. — Does 
it, Fred? ’Tis nonsense talking about all mind, all 
soul, and all that. The body must have something 
to do with it. As to your Platonics — 

So angels love — so let them love for me : 

When I’m all soul — so shall my love too he. 

My only hope arises from her increasing indifference 
to the palpable neglect and notorious infidelities 
of Trevor, and from her increasing confidence in 
your humble servant. But whence arise this con- 
fidence 1 say you. Why, because I apparently do 
every thing to lead the misled Trevor back to his 
duty ; and because she reads in my averted eye a 
sympathy for a neglected wife, without discovering 
the passion — the burning passion which glows be- 
neath it — and which would leap out in my glances, 
if it dared, with all the fire and im})eluosity of a 
volcano. But it is not time yet for the eru^)tion. 

Another point, too, I have gained; she thinks 
me ill-used by the world — imagines me libelled by 
what it says of me, gives me credit for the disdain 
with which I treat its accusations, and attributes 
rny philosophy under all with which it assails me, 
to a consciousness of its being undeserved. She 
imagines me more sinned against than sinning. 

These are her ideas, Fred; and her heart, like a 
knight-errant, has risen in my defence. She ima- 
gines me calumniated, and becomes my protector. 
She says she will judge for herself, by what she 
herself can see, (heaven bless her, and let her see 
a great deal more than she yet dreams of!) and 
never be led by common report. To excite 
her generosity thus, is a great point gained with 
one of her sex, for heaven knows how far she may 
carry it. 

With regard to the one great affair, which is, 
alas, too much emblazoned in the heraldic records 
of gallantry to attempt concealment, we have 
touched on it but once, and I managed it in so mas- 
terly a manner, that she is quite uncertain whether 
I tempted the lady, or the lady tempted me, and 
has found an apology for the whole adventure in 
the inexperience of a boy, and in the ardent tem- 
perament of youth. Oh ! Fred, Fred, whenever a 
woman can thus find an apology for one seduction 
in the natural steps which lead to all seductions, 
I am afraid her own is not entirely out of the cards. 
What think you? This, “ I calculate,” as the 


Americans say, is anothei step. By-the-by, I 
never tried an American. I wonder what sort of 
stuff the transatlantic maids, widows, and wives, 
are composed of. What think you, Fred, of a trip 
to New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston, or some 
other of their barbarous cities, upon a voyage 
of discovery in these matters of natural history ? 
matters a little more interesting to mankind than 
the icebergs, red snow, reindeer, and Esquimaux, 
which decorate the pages of our North Pole voy- 
agers. I dare say the arrival of two such fellows 
as we are among the Yankees would create about 
such a devil of a fuss among the women there, as 
the presence of Apollo did with the daughters of 
old Mysis, in the burletta of Midas. I much ques- 
tion, though, whether we should not do much mis- 
chief among these calculating” people by being 
sent out as a bale of goods, with a valuation and 
invoice tacked to our tales ; for I dare say love is no 
marketable commodity there, unless it could be sold 
by weight. 

Yet I suppose women are much the same all 
over the world, the very reverse of their own mir- 
rors, which reflect without talking, while they talk 
without reflecting ; and I dare swear that this is 
the case, from the gazelle-eyed Persian, who gazes 
at the liquid portrait of her eastern loveliness in the 
clear waters of the Bendemir, to the Esquimaux 
damsel, who dresses her frozen locks by the reflec- 
tion of an iceberg. But where the devil is my 
pen wandering ? 

What does it in the north. 

When it should he serving its sovereign in the south? 

La Tour has just been to say that dressing time 
is at hand. Fool ! does he imagine that I have 
done any thing else than watch the progress of 
time since Mast parted from her ? By my soul, every 
tick of my watch has been a comfort to my heart, 
as it brought me a second nearer to the time ap- 
pointed for my seeing her again. 

We dine a very small party in the little drawing 
room in Park Lane. Trevor, Agnes, and myself, 
proceed to the Haymarket early, that she may hear 
the whole of the opera, and indulge her enthusiasm 
for Mozart. How a little enthusiasm for musi« 
helps us on with them ! 

Trevor has a new flame, with a box aux trois* 
iemes, who comes early likewise. He has confided 
his secret to me, and I have, most unwillingly, 
mised to find an excuse for his early absence from 
his wife’s box. So now to dress, and then to dine, 
and then to the opera — the dear delicious opera — 
that great mart of every thing that is delightful in 
the world ; the royal exchange for sighs, smiles, 
glances, billets-doux, and visiting tickets ; the 
scene of so many commencements, and what is bet- 
ter, of so many denouements of intrigues ; the re- 
sort and delight of all, from the grim old dowager 
who graced the circle of Queen Charlotte, to the 
languishing young lady of the last drawing room ; 
from the connoisseur of music, to the amateur of 
“every thing;” aye, every thing, Fred, as you 
know full well, for of all the men I ever knew, 
Fred, you are really one of the worst. Ask your 
own conscience, now, and tell me fairly how many 
oaths have you sworn and broken in these very 
opera boxes ? But with you, I am afraid that 


Your oaths and your affections are all one. 

With your apprael; things to put off and on. 

Why don’t you take example by me, Fred] 
Let me advise you to do so before it is too late. 
But I am going to my Agnes, and I have no time, 
no head, no heart, for teaching ; and, therefore, 
you shall escape this time. I am so full of my 
anticipations, that I could say with Romeo — 

My thoughts presage some joyful news at hand: 

My bosom’s lord sits lightly on its throne ; 

And, all this day, an unaccustom’d spirit 
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. 

Ah me ! how SAveet is love itself possess’d. 

When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy I 

A nd so good bye, Fred, till after the opera. 


i- 

CHAPTER XXVII. 


LESLIE TO VILLARS. 

I am just returned, Fred, from the opera, where 
I have gazed at nothing else, listened to nothing 
else; in short, have had eyes, ears, and tongue for 
no one else than this angel woman. Why is she 
not more of woman and less of an angel ] then, 
perhaps — yes, then — and must we always reduce 
the scale of these creatures’ virtues before we make 
them ours ] Surely this is a defect in nature’s com- 
position, that the very thing for which these deli- 
cious women were formed, reduces them from per- 
fection. Yet it is not nature that does this ; ’tis 
habit, ’tis custom, ’tis the cursed conventional forms 
of the arbitrary few, whom from stoicism and insen- 
sibility have elected themselves lawgivers, and 
placed our natural passions in chains. And who 
are these Lycurguses and Solons of society ] why 
are we to adopt the iropinions as fiats, and vetos, and 
boundaries, that we are not to surpass] and why 
are they so hard upon poor “ womankind !” How, 

as I gazed upon this but I will not call her 

names — and turned away with a sick heart to the 
contemplation of the cold dull scene on the stage ! 
- — liow I wish for a Mephistophiles at my elbow 
whom I might have commanded to have sunk 
every thing before me into some yawning abyss, 
and have left me alone with Agnes Trevor on some 
silent, solitary spot, with no other light than the 
pale lamp of night, and no other eyes but those 
that stud the sky with stars. But unluckily a 
mental Mephistophiles can only suggest ideas of 
wdiat might be, without the power to say they 
shall be; and the days of “Faust” are gone 
by. 

I wonder, Fred, whether she really is what she 
seems; whether, if there were the certainty, the 
absolute certainty of concealment from all the 

world — whether, like other women, she would 

no — no — no, I am afraid that — 


if only 

The midnight moon and silent stars had seen it, 

She would not live to be reproached by them : 

But dig down deep to find a grave beneath, 

And hide her from their beams. 

This would be very foolish and very obstinate, 
supposing it had come to pass; but I am afraid ’ti« 
true; and I have a great deal to do yet. But be 
fore I proceed I must tell you of an adventure that 
I have just met with, which makes more impres- 
sion on my mind than it deserves; perhaps 
the greater, from the complete contrast of her 
who is the heroine of it to her whom I have just 
quitted. 

I told you in a former letter of my having met a 
drunken woman in the street, who demanded impe- 
riously if rny name was not Leslie; of my denying 
it; of my seeing her again the next day, when the 
whole circumstance had passed into utter ol)livion 
w'ith her, and when she denied all knowledge 
of me. 

Well, two or three times after this, I met her as 
I have sometimes walked home from my parties or 
my club; and whenever she was intoxicated she 
always addressed me by my name, but w'hen .sol)er, 
appeared utterly unconscious of knowing me. In 
short, if she really does know me, her senses seem 
to move precisely in the inverse ratio to those 
of other people ; for liquor restores her recollec- 
tion, instead of destroying it. This had excited 
my curiosity, and I had determined to make 
La Tour follow her, and discover something of 
her history the next time that 1 should encounter 
her. 

To-night my carriage, owing to the irnmensfe 
crowd, was at the top of the Haymarket. and 
having put Agnes into Trevor’s chariot, I was 
impatient to be alone, to give myself up to all the 
delicious recollection of an evening spent entirely 
with her. I determined therefore to walk to my 
carriage. My whole mind was filled with ideas 
of the charming Agnes; I lived again over every 
expression of her lip and eye ; I was almost insen 
sible to the surrounding cries of “ Coach, your 
honor,” “ Light, your honor,” and all the horrid 
noises that invade one’s ear on a smile from 
an English theatre, w'hen I found myself suddenly 
seized by the arm ; a hand was pressed forcibly 
upon my breast, so as to keep my face just in 
the light of a gas-lamp, while a voice uttered, 
or rather hoarsely screamed, “Yes, yes, thou art 
Leslie! thou art Leslie!” I started from the 
grasp, as I beheld before me the same woman, 
in a state of intoxication bordering on madness. 
Her eye balls glared ; her mouth foamed ; her mat- 
ted hair streamed in the winds; a loose red hand- 
kerchief attempted in vain to confine the bloated i 
and unnatural protuberances which had once loirm-sl 
ed a bosom, within their proper boundaries. 
was covered cap~d~pied with mud, the fruits | 
of sundry rollings in sundry gutters, and as i»hej| 
waved her arms in the air, and then placing! 
one in her side, and again seizing me with the | 
other, stood across my path, y(iu would really have . 
imagined her some demon from the infernal re-^ j 
gions. And then her glazed and fixed look; the^ | 
hoarse guttural sounds that issued from her throat, j 
and which passion and intoxication prevented j 


THE ROUH. 


69 


her from embodying into words, excepting now 
and then that they condensed themselves into 
sometbing like an imprecation, ^while the breath 
with which they were uttered came rolling in my 
face, impregnated with the fumes of gin, and all 
the “impure spirits of the vasty deep” of her 
capacious stomach. Really, Fred, it half unman- 
ned me ; and then her hellish laugh, when I at- 
tempted to shake her off, with the words, “Wo- 
man !’’ she repeated, and then burst into a loud 
“ Ha ! ha ! ha !” that afisolutely drowned the 
noise of the watchmen’s rattles in its loud rever- 
berations. Intemperance had made sad inroads 
upon her complexion, which, as the strong gas-light 
fell upon it, I perceived was first flushed and red, 
turned gradually to a bluish green, such as we have 
burned salt before our faces. It absolutely startled 
the watchmen, as they seized her to release the 
“ gentleman,” or “gemman,” as they called it for 
shortness (and the shorter perhaps the better,) 
from her intrusion. La Tour, who had by this 
time come up to see what detained me, absolutely 
jumped a yard high, as ‘with a strength almost 
Herculean she shook the worthy guardians of the 
night f(om her; and again screaming the word 
“ woman,” I felt her fingers relax in their firm 
grasp. Her whole form seemed to shrink into 
weakness; her voice assumed a softness almost 
feminine, as she exclaimed^ — “ Woman ! yes, I 
was once a woman !” A stream of blood gushed 
from her nose, and she fell flat upon the pavement, 
striking the head with such violence against the 
curbstone, that the lourd sound (I can’t find an 
English word) still vibrates on my ear. The 
moment they saw her thus overpowered by her own 
passions, the valiant keepers of the peace would have 
laid hold of her by the head and heels, and carried her 
off to the watch-house, had not my humanity inter- 
fered. 

Struck by the evident temporary insanity of the 
poor devil, I threw the watchmen a guinea, and 
desiring them to be careful of her, I ordered La 
Tour to accompany them to the watch-house to see 
that my commands were obeyed, and that she was 
lodged in safety, at least for the night. As they 
bore her aw'ay she struggled faintly, and my quick 
ear still caught the name of “ Leslie ” mixed up 
with the word “damnation.” I say, Fred, that 
would look ominous did w© believe in such a thing, 
and if this poor devil were a sybil. Well there’s 
my adventure for you : — what think you of it 1 

Can it be possible that this wretch and Agnes 
Trevor are of the same sex ? Is there not a third 
species not yet admitted into the distinctions of the 
historians of human nature 1 

Some physiologists have imagined a gradation 
of beings from gods to devils; and if their hypo- 
thesis be true, this Slashing Nan, as the guards- 
man call her, must be about a thousand degrees 
down the scale towards the latter. And yet, Fred, 
this wretch had all the attributes of woman. But 
who in that wild, and bloated, and livid counte- 
nance, those pale compressed lips, overflowing with 
blood and saliva, that dirty matted mane, rather 
than hair, and those hollow sunken cheeks, cover- 
ed with a confused mixture of vermilion and per- 
spiration, could recognise a woman’s lovely coun- 
tenance 1 


that little round, 

In which you may observe a world of sweet variety ; 

For coral lips ; for threads of purest gold, 

Hair; for delicious choice of flowers cheeks; 

Wonder in every portion of that form. 

A strange fancy is come over me, and I cannot 
drive it from my mind. I am imagining Agnes 
Trevor, the lovely idol of my walking thoughts, 
the object of my nightly dreams, in whose form 
nature seems to have been prodigal of beauties, 
and to have “made her up of every woman’s best” 
reduced to such a wretch as this. It is a strange 
fancy, is n’t it, Fred I and yet my mind is pursuing 
it with a tenacity which I cannot resist, and which 
traces the gradual change of every beauty into 
some loathsome deformity. ’Tis a strange freak 
ofi nature, that the extremities of loveliness and 
loathsomeness should by turns be the attributes of 
the same forms ; and strange, too, that we should 
sometimes loathe what we have loved; and yet 
’tis natural, at least we have found it so, have n’t 
we, Fred] 

“ Oh, here’s La Tour; what the devil ails the 
fellow? he looks aghast; he is as pale as the 
pillow-case, and trembles as though he had the 
tertian ague. Oh, dead — is she ? Poor devil ! — 
well — what is that to me I — what’s that you say, 
scoundrel ] It can’t be — it must be a lie — a damn d 
lie — 

No wonder, Fred, that I stopped writing, and so 
you’ll say when you hear all. Who the deuce do 
you think this poor creature is, or rather was, for 
she is now a thing that has been, and is reckoned 
among the pasts instead of the presents. I don’t 
•much like that word was, w'hen it is applied 
to creatures of our own species, and puts us in 
mind that we too may one day be reckoned among 
the “ has beens.” Well, but who do you think 
she was I from the description I have just given 
of her you will never guess ; so I may as well tell 
you. Don’t start though, a yard from your chair, 
as I did — but it was poor Fanny Pearson! Yes, 
the once lovely Fanny Pearson ! 

Do you remember, Fred, when we first saw her 
in her father’s parsonage in Cornwall, when our 
confounded chaise was overturned, and my leg 
nearly broken by the accident! Do you remember 
how pale she became as the clumsy country Escu- 
lapius turned and twisted my ankle about, as 
though the joint was made of some of the iron out 
of his native mines] Even now I feel a twinge 
at the recollection. And at night, do you remem- 
ber the family circle ] the old parson with his 
full-bottomed wig and placid countenance] his 
wife, the venerable Lady Bountiful of her hus- 
band’s parishioners, with her eternal smile and 
mob-cap, and the thousand and one recipes for a 
sprained ancle, which the beauty ^f their only 
daughter had induced me to magnify into a serious 
accident, as an excuse for prolonging my stay ] 
and above all, do you remember the then blooming 
Fanny, with those clu.stering golden locks that 
hung over her large blue eyes, while she “ pliet, 
the busy needle,” and listened to the tales of 
all “ the dangers we had passed” in the Peninsula, 
which, like Othello, we related to their wondering 
ears. 


70 


THE ROUfi. 


The whole scene is now before me. I again 
feel myself snug in the old gentleman’s easy-chair, 
with my foot usurping the empire of his gouty 
stool, while my eye rested on the clean white 
window curtains, the cheerful fire, the hissing tea- 
kettle, and fragrant souchong, handed to me by 
what I then thought the prettiest little hand in the 
world ; while you played such havoc among that 
large haycock of toast and butter, which the old 
lady’s hospitality had provided for thy ravenous 
appetite, for thou alw^ays hadst a most unromantic 
love of eating. 

And then the simplicity of the old gentleman; 
his love for, and his ignorance of politics; his won- 
der at the difference of Oxford in his time and in ours 
and then those damnable corkscrew faces of 3murs, 
when he proposed to us to join in the family prayer, 
during which you fell into the soundest nap that 
ever mortal was blest with ; for you are a mere 
mortiil as to sleeping and eating! But above 
all, Fred, do you remember poor Fanny, with 
her blooming cheeks, shaking back her clustering 
locks, and arresting the progress of her needle in 
the most interesting stitch of the collar which she 
was working, to listen to your account of my swim- 
ming the Douro in the face of the enemy’s fire; — 
we w ere always each other’s trumpeters you know. 
Then the side-long glance that I caught her cast- 
ing at me as a large crystal drop of liquid dew 
forced itself through her long dark lashes, and stole 
over her soft cheek, while that bosom, so carefully 
concealed by its snow-white drapery, heaved and 
fluttered with agitations, till then unknown to her. 
And can that be the same bosom which I saw a 
couple of hours since, by the light of the gas-lamp in 
Jthe Hay-market, bruised and swollen, and exposed 
to the rude gaze, and still ruder hands of watch- 
men and street-keepers] To think, Fred, that any 
thing 60 lovely should come to this; but ’tis the 
way of every thing. Cabbages, you know, are now 
growing in the palaces of the Csesars; and where 
Horace lounged and Cicero harangued, the mo- 
dern Romans now cleanse their heads and kill their 
pigs: 

To such vile uses must we come at last. 

Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay, 

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 

All this is melancholy, isn’t it, Fred] But, what 
matters it ] 

Women to cards may be compared ; we play 
A round or two, -when us’d we throw away , 

Take a fresh pack, nor is it worth our grieving, 

Who cuts or shuflies with our dirty leaving. 

Then, Fred, do you remember the night she left 
the parsonage ; a cold clear night in September, 
with a sky studded with stars] Dost remember 
watching window after window in the humble, 
enough pretty mansion, as they successively dark- 
ened, till there was a light only to be seen in one, 
and that was her'sl and dost remember how 


anxiously we watched the shadow of her figure as 
she passed between the light and the white dimity 
curtain, and imagined at every motion her little 
preparations for flight] I compared it at the 
time, you know, to the ombres Chinoises, with 
which we used to amuse our sisters during the 
holydays. 

I think I again hear her soft step stealing down 
the staircase, and again tremble with the fear 1 felt 
that she would not come, as I for a moment lost 
the sound ; and which she afterwards told me was 
occasioned by her sinking on her knees at her 
father’s door, and uttering a prayer that God would 
bless him ! What strange creatures these women 
are ! They pray upon every emergency, whether 
they are saints or sinner! Then came the 
trembling drawing back of the bolt; then the cursed 
creaking of the door, that kept us breathless 
as the wind before summer storm; and then — she 
was in my arms — hurried along the little gravel 
walk, catching with her hand at every tree and flower 
in our path, and almost clinging to the little wicket 
entrance, which she was never to pass again. Dost 
remember, Fred, the autumnal leaves falling upon us 
as we fled, and the cloud that past over the moon 
as I lifted her into the chaise, the door of which was 
held open by that imperturbable La Tour — that 
fellow has no feeling — and then the river of tears 
that gushed over my breast, till 1 was absolutely 
wet through with grief] Fred, we are sad dogs, 
and I have been thus particular in my reminiscences 
by w'ay of penance; the recollection will do us 
good ; and I should have been quite unhappy if I 
had not given the watchman the guinea to take 
care of her, and sent Latour to see that it wasn’t 
thrown away. 

Poor Fanny ! the only thing she wanted to 
make her perfect, was a little knowledge of the 
world, and that I gave her. Who would have 
thought that she would have made such a use of 
it ] 

It is really quite lamentable, Fred, to think wdiat 
rapid and prodigious strides these women make in 
profligacy, when they are once embarked in its 
paths. Now you, or I, or any other man, w'ould 
have been five hundred years in attaining that sum- 
mit of vice, to which poor Fanny had arrived. Yes, 
man is a slow animal in these matters; but woman, 
she is like a letter conveyed by the new process of 
creating a vacuum, and arrives at her destination 
at once. We, now, go on gradually. With us 

111 habits gather by unseen degrees. 

As brooks make rivers — rivers run to seas. 

Then women sometimes take to drinking; and 
that helps them on prodigiously. By-the-by, 1 
suppose Milton, in his description of woman’s first 
formation, had an eye to this destructive inclina- 
tion of the sex, when he made Adam say — 

Who, stooping, opened my left side, and took 
From thence a rib— with cordial spirits warm. 

Good night, Frei. 


THE R0U£. 


71 


CHAPTER XXVin. 


As to the other persons of our drama, they moved 
on during this period precisely according to their 
various characters. Amelia, still as cold and for- 
mal, and fashionable as ever, was not aroused out 
of her usual routine of feeling, or rather want of 
feeling, by becoming the mother of a beautiful boy. 

Her accouchement was attended with all the 
etiquette that the knowledge of Lady Pomeroy 
could press into her service on the occasion. Dr. 
"’'Clark, and a nurse who had officiated on such oc- 
casions, with'two or three countesses and marchion- 
esses, were in attendance in their various capacities ; 
knockers and bells were muffled ; the street covered 
with straw; and every thing conducted perfectly, 
en regie. 

Henry Pomeroy was delighted at being a father, 
and would have spent the whole day in his wife’s 
apartment, and have officiated as principal nurse, 
had his mother permitted it. He was very anxious 
that Amelia shtiuld perform all the maternal duties 
herself ; and even ventured to suggest that those 
who consigned such a sweet task to others, were 
really scarcely more than half the mothers of their 
own children. All his remonstrances, however, 
could make no alteration in the determination of 
Lady Pomeroy that her daughter-in-law should not 
be made a wet nurse. It was only for vulgar peo- 
ple to follow the course of nature, and spoil their 
figures; and quite out of the question for people of 
fashion to do such things. So poor Henry was 
condemned to see the child of his delighted affection 
draw its sustenance from a stranger’s bosom, and 
compelled to make love to a buxom nursery maid 
for the pleasure of nursing his own son. 

Amelia was perfectly recovered at the end of a 
week, but propriety and etiquette required the con- 
finement of a month; and a full month was accord- 
ingly permitted to elapse ere the cards of “ thanks 
for obliging inquiries” were issued. The farce of 
churching was then performed in her own boudoir; 
and Amelia appeared again as blooming as ever, 
and with as few cares upon her heart and brow as 
before she had become a mother. 

With Lady Pomeroy and Amelia, Trevor’s con- 
duct, being fashionable, was passed over as all right; 
but with his sister, and with Hartley, it was differ- 
ent. They both trembled at the position in which 
their friend Agnes was placed ; they both foresaw 
the total wreck of her hopes unless Trevor could be 
brought to his senses ; and the one knowing Leslie, 
and the other suspecting him, both, without com- 
municating with each other, had the same thoughts 
on the subject, and trembled for the happiness of 
Agnes though neither of them had a glimpse of 
suspicion of her honor. 

With these feelings the both watched the move- 
ments of the Trevors with anxious solicitude, each 
afraid to disclose their opinions or their fears to any 
one else. The continuance of the sai|ie train of 
thought at length led to an iclaircissement between 
themselves, and thus the first step to mutual con- | 


fidence, between Hartley and Lady Emily was 
taken, through their mutual anxiety for their 
friend. 

All, however, that they could do, was to lament 
in secret over the conduct of Trevor, and to sympa- 
thise with Agnes. Matters continued thus for some 
time : the alienation ef Trevor and Agnes gradually 
became greater in reality, though not in appearance. 
At length Lady Emily ventured to argue with him 
on the absurdity of his conduct, and to represent 
its too probable consequences : he alwavs sheltered 
himself under the example of others, and shook off 
every remonstrance with the unanswerable argu- 
ment, that “ every body did the same.” In his own 
mind too, though almost without acknowledging it 
to himself, he had such a thorough dependence upon 
the affections and principles of his wife, that the 
“ probable consequences” hinted at by his sister 
were never once thought of with any thing resem 
bling the slightest fear of their occurrence. He 
therefore pursued his usual course, and spent his 
whole time in gambling, at his clubs, or in the pur- 
suit of some intrigue, which enabled him to preserve 
the character of a gay fellow, or which gave him 
same additional notoriety among that set to which 
he was proud |o belong. 

In the mean time Leslie became almost domesti- 
cated at Trevor House. He called in the m.orninjr 
immediately after breakfast, rallied Trevor for his 
perpetual domesticity while he w^as alone with him 
in his library, or when in the presence of Agnes, 
hinted at the happiness he might find at home did 
he stay there. He was then sure to start some sub- 
ject, or mention some new attraction, which led 
Trevor out, and by that means secured himself the 
company of Mrs. Trevor for the rest of the morn- 
ing; and all this was so well managed, that Trevor 
only felt obliged to him for preventing any un- 
pleasant little matrimonial consequences arising 
from his absence, while Agnes thought she saw 
a tacict sympathy with her for her husband’s 
neglect. 

But Leslie still felt that all these manoeuvres 
were useless ; they did not rapprocher him to his 
main object; they seemed to make the way smooth, 
and yet there was the same insurmountable bar- 
rier to be passed over — the conveying a knowledge 
to her of his passion ; nor could all his ingenuity, 
all his nightly thoughts and daily contrivances, 
imagine or carve out a method of doing this with- 
out creating such an alarm as his “tact” taught 
him would be fatal to his hopes for ever. 

It was in vain that he recurred to all his ex- 
perience ; in vain he plotted and counterplotted ; 
all he could do was to disguise his passion, his in- 
tentions, and his wishes, instead of explaining 
them. 

He could mark all his struggling feelings at the 
evident neglect of her husband ; he had read in 
the glistening eye, the slightly convulsed cheek, 
the contracted lip, the disappointment of early hope 
and affectionate anticipation, and he had watched 
these symptoms till he hoped they had gradually 
diminished into the indifference with which Tre- 
vor’s neglect and absence were at present per- 
mitted. 


72 


THE R0U£. 


' CHAPTER XXIX. 


Leslie to tillars. 

Why, Villars, do you still pester me with your 
stories and your f6ars about the “ Lady of the 
Lake,” and her following me through the world 1 
Is not Italy large enough for her to ramble in 1 
Or if she is tired of that, is not the Lago Mag- 
giore deep enough to make her forget me, or 
any thing else not worth remembering? Has 
she not wherewithal to indulge the most wayward 
of her wishes ? Has not the letter from Lumley, 
giving her an account of my decease, satisfied her ? 
Does she not suppose me dead and buried in one 
of the Ionian islands ? and what would she have 
more ? If her love continue so great as you de- 
scribe it, why let her go and amuse herself by 
erecting a mausoleum to my memory. I should like 
to read the epitaph with which she would adorn 
it. 

But you tell me that the old priest from being 
the humble supplicant — the meek and bare-headed 
friar — the receiver and distributer of the alms, is 
become the sturdy threatener — the bold demander 
of justice — the brave defender and asserter of in- 
nocence. The hypocrite ! But they are all alike 
— priests and women — all hypocrisy. This must 
have been the work of that cursed anonymous 
scribbler, who did all the mischief. Luckily for us, 
even he did not know our real names; otherwise, 
this meddling priest might have given me trouble. 
You say he doubts my death: I therefore send you 
out a magazine, in the obituary of which I have in- 
serted the death of an English gentleman, of my 
assumed name, on his travels, as having occurred 
in the precise spot where Lumlty chose to make 
me depart this life in such an exemplary and re- 
pentant manner. — Weak people often believe that 
which they see in print, of which they can never 
ff)e convinced in manuscript, or by mere word of 
mouth. The devil (the printer’s devil, I mean) 
seems to give it the stamp of truth ; and this, I 
have no doubt, has been the real reason why all 
the lies of history and tradition have been received 
as gospel. 

Once convinced I am no more, his Christianity 
will step in to our assistance ; his religion will 
never suffer him to make war with the dead. — 
He will preach peace and forgiveness, along with 
the penitence he prescribes to his protegee : and 
we shall jog on, in our old path, without any fear 
of future molestation. Yet, Fred, keep your eye 
upon them, I would not have them here for the 
world. So pray try to blot out such insignificant 
spots as the British isles from the map of their 
geographical knowledge. And so much for 
them. 

And now, Fred, to the subject that engrosses 
my whole soul — that usurps such universal domi- 
nion over every sense of which I am possessed, 
that I cannot call one of them my own. No, 
they are all — all hers. Nay, she seems, by the 
influence of the passion she has inspired, to 
have created new ones. Yes, Fred, I am sure 
that in the fruition of such a love as mine for 


Agnes, a thousand new senses must start into 
existence to allow the full enjoyment of possession. 
All the feelings inspired by all the other women I 
have ever known in the world, if they could 
be congregated and amalgamated into one great 
passion, could not equal that which is now burning 
in my heart — yes, burning, Fred — literally, like 
Polyphemus for Galatea — 

I burn for her with unrelenting fire. 

Mine is indeed a giant love ; and I wish I had the 
power to roll down some huge rock upon the 
head of that Acis of a Trevor when I see him near 
its object. 

If I did not thus suffer my passion to ebulli- 
tionize at night in these letters to you, in which 
the volcano of my heart and mind relieves itself, it 
would scorch me to a cinder; and the only thing 
La Tour would have to do at my toilet in the 
morning, would be to sweep away his master. 

All that I have felt before seems only to have 
been the feeling of a boy. Upon the principle 
of gymnastics, my heart appears only to have 
attained strength by exercise, and its foregone 
experience only serves to make its present faculty 
of feeling the stronger. 

As the Rhone is said to pass through the Lake 
of Geneva, and to issue out of its clear and crystal 
waters without leaving a trace of its own darker 
hue ; so hither has passion after passion rolled 
through this heart of mine, and left it untouched 
by their fires. But this, Fred, this passion — this 
madness — this — call it what you please — for love 
is too cold a word, that occupies me now — is 
not, I fear, to be quenched, even by possession. 
Possession ! my thoughts must not wander that 
way ; and yet this dolt of a husband, this miserable, 
this insensible tool and fool, who prefers a gaming- 
table and the rattle of dice to the society and 
conversation of such a woman ; and who deserts 
that bed, which her beauty so bravely becomes as 
it lies pillowed to receive him, for the yjurchased 
caresses of a foreign paramour ; does everything in 
his power to throw her into my arms ; and my 
web is silently, and I trust surely, weaving around 
him. Yes, he will be in my toils; and she must — 
she shall follow. Yes, Fred, shall; and when 
I say shall and will, I mean volition, and not the 
mere future tense ; and you know I have never 
said it in vain. 

Yet how or in what way to accomplish this 
will, I can see no present means; though this 
plotting head of mine absolutely aches with the 
schemes that it daily, nightly, and hourly suggests, 
with this sole object in view. The treadmill itself 
does not revolve more times in the course of the 
four-and-twenty hours than this brain of mine in 
the consideration of the various projects and plans 
which present themselves. — The ruin of her hus- 
band does not afford means quick enough for my 
impatience. The dice are not always against 
him ; and thus it is a longer operation than I had 
calculated upon, and in the mean time my {)assion 
is preying upon my very soul — is wearing me out 
inch by inch ; and it becomes a matter of absolute 
justice to myself to succeed. Self-preservation, 
everybody says, is the first law of nature ; and 
nobody can blame me for acting upon that which 


73 


THE 


actuates everybody. Yes, the possession of Agnes 
Trevor is absolutely necessary to my existence ; 
and it would indeed be' a kind of moral suicide, not 
to attempt everything to compass my ends: and 
suicide, you know, is the worst of crimes; isn’t it, 
Fred?” 

You say, give her up; come to Italy, and lose 
all recollection of such a coy beauty, in the arms 
of the many willing ones who will welcome me 
there. Fred, I cannot do it. Nor could the pos- 
session of all the women in Italy, provided you 
could ensure me such wholesale merchandise, 
quench the soif de jouissance which she has in- 
spired. Yet what to do, I know not. To gain her 
by consent seems to be a work of ages. She will 
never yield till her gray hairs have rendered her 
unlovely, and my own have made me impotent — 
neither of them desirable circumstances, under any 
event; for I have known two elderly people, whose 
passions are dead, to compare former feelings over 
conversational souchong and regret that they did 
not understand each other when their passions 
were alive, and when the understanding would not 
have been entirely useless. Think of this Fred, 
and let us save ^urseives and others from this use- 
less repentance.’ 

But am I to be foiled ? — foiled by a girl I, 
who have triumphed over twenty — I believe I may 
add ten to the number, but I have not my common 
place book by me, and I don’t like to commit my- 
self; yet one cannot call that conquest either, 
where willingness met us in the middle of the way, 
and save us the trouble of going over the other half. 
To conquer such a woman as this, is indeed con- 
quest — at least it shall be. But how to make it so, 
that is the question ; whether gentleness will win 
her to my purpose, or whether Tarquin like, I shall 
make her mine by force ; and win her will and 
heart afterwards, eh, Fred ] shall her attendant 

Some morning early 

Find the bed unhearsed of her mistress ? 

What say you to this ? Shall I venture 1 What 
though I failed, and died in the attempt, I should 
be found like the miser in the ruins of Hercula- 
neum, scorched to death with my treasure in my 
hand. Yet no, I would not owe her to force ; that 
is, provided I can win her otherwise ; I must have 
her mind — her heart — her will — her sou/. But 
you say, that with a woman so constituted, forbid- 
den joys would produce agony instead of delight ; 
that the anxiety, the guilt, the terror, would turn 
pleasure into pain. Fred, you don’t know human 
nature so well as old Ovid, that venerable patri- 
arch of love’s literature, who, speaking of what are 
called guilty joys, says. 

The guilt which makes them anxious makes them great. 

And is not this true 1 and have not we found it 
so] — to be sure we have; and shall again, I 
trust. 

To resume ; I had scarcely written the above 
when in came Trevor, on his way from his club. I 
don’t know how it is, but my heart always rises, 
and a kind of something like suffocation oppresses 
me at the sight of him ; and yet, poor devil, he 


ROUfi. 


helps me as much as he can. But what do you 
think he came for] — why, to tell me they weve 
making arrangements for passing the summer at 
Trevor Hall, and that I was included in the party 
proposed to be invited. What think you of that, 
Fred] To be domesticated in the same house 
with her; to sleep under the same roof with her 
to have her constantly before my eyes ; the com- 
panion of my walks and rides ; her conversation 
in the morning, her harp in the evening ; and then 
the opportunities that must occur, and if they don’t 
occur naturally, that I shall make. By heavens, 
this will seal our fate, — this will make her mine. 
Well, to use Bonaparte’s favorite phrase, “ Que les 
destins s’accornplissent !” 

Thanks to Trevor and his hospitality ! I shal^ 
certainly accept his invitation — would n’t you 
Fred] 

Besides, La Tour — that subtle devil, has made 
himself so completely the master of the femme-de- 
chambrds heart ; and, if appearances are not de- 
ceitful, of her person too, (La Tour is a sad dog 
among the women, and I must correct him,) that 
she will do any thing for me. Oh these women ! 
— “ of every ten that are made, the devils mar 
five ;” — and who knows Fred — in the same house, 
with the maid in one’s favor, — who knows what 
may happen] or rather, what may not happen] 
Dressing-rooms have closets; bed rooms back stair 
cases. Mem. — to make myself perfectly acquaint- 
ed with the whole topography of the house — from 
the attic to the basement — from the house- 
maid’s room to the dormitorio of the lovely 
mistress. I have known a great deal done 
and a great deal escaped by a thorough know- 
ledge of the ways of a large house — have not 
you, Fred ! 

Lady Flora Freeling, the young wife of the old 
financier, is to be of the party ; she is Trevor’s 
passion for the moment, and I have little doubt her 
consenting to be one of us is his principal reason 
for the arrangement. Luckily, too, the Argus-eyed 
friend of Agnes, Lady Emily Trevor, is obliged to 
attend her Lady mother into Yorkshire, where of 
course she will be followed by her substantial sha- 
dow, my cousin Hartley ; so that I anticipate a 
clear field. We are to start in three days; my 
next letter, therefore, Fred, will, for the first time, 
be dated under the same roof with her — mind, 
whenever you find a feminine pronoun without 
any antecedent, that you always translate it — 
Agnes ! I don’t know whether there is any gram- 
matical rule for this in Lindley Murray — but never 
mind. 

Now is it not odd, Fred, that Trevor should pre- 
fer such a woman as Lady Flora, whom both you 
and I know very well, and never quarrelled in cur 
opinion about her, to such a woman as I describe 
his wife to be ] Can there be any truth in the 
idea that manage really diminishes one’s feelings, 
and lessens that beauty in a wife in the eyes of 
her husband, which he admired in her when he 
considered her only as a mistress, because she is a 
wife ] Good night, Fred. 

London was now beginning to thin ; parliament 
had been prorogued ; the closed window-shuttera 
of different houses were beginning to proclaim the 
absence of their tenants; and Agnes longed to 
escape from the dissipation and oppressive heat of 


74 


THE ROUfi. 


Loniion, once more to breathe the free, clear, and 
open air of the country. 

As the thought of Trevor Hall came upon her 
mind, a gentle sigh escaped her; but she had long 
long since descarded the idea that the country was 
to recall those scenes which rendered the first 
months of her marriage so happy. She had long 
since ceased to hope it; and, almost unconsciously 
to herself, had unfortunately ceased to wish it. 
This latter feeling had created some little surprise 
in her own mind ; but it was very easily attribut- 
able to the conduct of Trevor, and to the total differ- 
ence of his character from any thing she had ever 
anticipated. 

A party was soon made up among the few peo- 
ple who remained in town; and others agreed to 
come at stated periods during their stay at the hall. 
J^ady Flora, Leslie, and D’Oyley, were among 
those proposed by Trevor, and assented to by 
A.gnes, who felt great pleasure in Leslie’s being 
included in her husband’s invitation, as his ap- 
parent friendship, as well as his talents had made 
him to her a very desirable addition to her party. 

The arrangements were therefore soon made; 
the London establishment was put upon board 
wages; the imperials were crammed; the car- 
riages filled ; and away flew the Trevor family and 
their party, to carry London into the country. 

Leslie, to the great joy of Flounce, and to the 
pretended delight of La Tour, followed a few days 
after, and arrived just as the family were comfort- 
ably established at that place, in which alone 
Agnes had ever tasted the delights of married 
happiness. 




CHAPTER XXX. 


It was in the country that Jjeslie was destined 
to feel the full force of that attraction which was 
becoming his destiny. In the midst of London dis- 
sipation, Agnes had never appeared half so charm- 
ing, half so fascinating as now, that, untrammeled by 
the fetters of fashionable society, she gave w'ay to 
her natural disposition. Welcomed and beloved 
by her tenantry, she seemed the guardian angel, 
the tutelar genius of the neighborhood, and de- 
voted her mornings to inquire into and remedy the 
evils which had arisen from their long absence. 

The large party at Trevor Hall being literally, 
either purposely on the part of Trevor, or accident- 
ally on the part of Agnes, so selected, that they 
were divided into pairs, and Trevor devoting him- 
self almost exclusively to Lady Flora Freeling, 
Agnes was left during the mornings almost entirely 
to Leslie. 

He rode wdth her— he walked with her — he en- 
CDuniered her in her morning visits of charity, ap- 
parently engaged in the same object. He met her 
in her evening stroll on the terrace, from which it 
was one of her great delights to watch the sun 
sink into the distant bosom of the Atlantic ; and 


he hung enchanted over her at the harp, descanting 
with enthusiasm on the sweet sounds that seemed 
to engross his whole soul. 

Admiring the same beauties, engaged in the 
same pursuits, no wonder that ideas of the con- 
geniality of their minds and dispositions sprang up 
in the breast of Agnes; and with it came also a 
feeling of regret, of almost sympathy, that one who 
seemed so every way capable of bestowing happi- 
ness, should not have met with some woman whose 
heart and mind might have corresponded with the 
warm and enthusiastic feelings by which his own 
appeared to be directed. Then her thoughts would 
glance for a moment at Trevor — would draw an 
involuntary comparison, and an involuntary sigh 
would escape her. But thoughts like these she 
felt to be dangerous, and with a strong resolution 
she threw them from her. 

Sometimes, as they rode or walked together, 
engaged either in conversation or charitable pur- 
suits, she would wonder at the early impressions 
she should have imbibed of this man, and could 
scarcely believe that the Leslie she now saw, and 
he whom she recollected to have heard and judged 
of through the medium of the paragraphs which 
recorded his crime, was the same person. 

Leslie exerted all his powers of conversation to 
render their tete-a-tHes as long and as delightful as 
possible : with his observations on the scenery and 
circumstances around him, he would mingle tales 
of romantic adventure — anecdotes of daring gal- 
lantry — and sometimes venture upon a story of 
enthusiastic passion, that would call the color into 
the cheek of Agnes, and dim her eye with the tear of 
sympathy and admiration. To lead her thoughts 
to himself, he would then become apparently ab- 
stracted; a sigh would escape from his bosom, a 
cloud come over his brow ; recollections and regrets 
would appear to oppress him almost to agony ; the 
moment that he perceived this change had fixed her 
attention, he would strike the rowels into the side 
of his horse, and starting from her side in a furious 
gallop, appeared determined to outride recollection 
and regret, and then return to her in a few minutes 
with a forced gayety that only added strength to the 
impression made by his previous apparently deep 
feeling. 

He knew that in such a heart as that of Agnes 
all this must in time make its way. He felt her 
increasing interest in his fate ; and with that tact 
which is never deceived, where it exists, he fully 
understood that these interviews, so delightful to 
him from one cause, and yet so tantalizing from an- 
other, were any thing but uninteresting to her, and 
he blessed the happy constitution of the party 
at Trevor House for leaving her so much to 
himself. 

Patient as he had compelled himself to be, he 
began to tire of the passive part he was compelh'd 
to play — a part so unlike that dictated by his 
hitherto enterprising disposition; yet for the life of 
him he dared not proceed. The fact was, in no 
other instance had his heart been engaged in the 
pursuit; in no other woman had he found such ad- 
mirable qualities so blended, that while one excited 
his passion to the utmost, another kept him vithin 
the bounds of respect. Yet, could he have been 
sure, or could he even have hoped that he had ex- 
cited one incipient reciprocal feeling to plead for 


THE R0U£. 


75 


him in her breast, he had long ere this have ven- 
ture J all, and have declared himself. 

But of this there was no appearance; warm, as 
were her feelings, glowing with all the animation 
of youth, and disappointed as they had been, where 
they ought to have been gratified, they exercised 
themselves in charity and not love. Yet her heart 
was such, that he was convinced it was not framed 
to remain insensible; he felt certain that the indif- 
ference to which Trevor’s conduct had reduced her, 
must, at some period or other, be succeeded by an- 
other passion ; he could not believe that such a 
heart could remain long unoccupied. In the mean- 
time, he was certainly more in the thoughts of Ag- 
nes than he supposed, though without exciting one 
of the feelings that he wished. 

She was, as he had calculated, grateful for his 
conduct with regard to Trevor, and she felt a 
pleasure in the sympathy which she had excited in 
a mind evidently so superior to the generality of 
those hy whom she was surrounded. She saw, too, 
that this man loved, and she believed him to be un- 
happy ; and her curiosity being excited as to the ob- 
ject of his attachment, together with the evident 
anxiety of his mind, kept him almost a perpetual 
inmate of her thoughts. 

As she became the more perplexed, the more 
restless became her curiosity to discover his secret, 
and during the execution of that part of his scheme 
by wliich he expected to rouse some feeling of 
jealousy, she had fixed upon two or three who 
seemed to be the likely fair ones; but still she could 
not decide. 

These thoughts had intruded themselves with 
more force than usual one morning during a ride 
in which she had been accompanied by some of 
her party without Leslie, to pay visits at a dis- 
tance, and she was still canvassing his conduct 
with regard to various females with whom she had 
formerly seen him, when her carriage arrived at 
her own door. On alighting, instead of going to 
the drawing room, she passed into the library, 
but stopped suddenly as she observed Sir Robert 
Leslie absorbed in the contemplation of a miniature 
which lay before him on the table. His head 
rested on his hands ; his eye seemed fixed intently 
on the object before him; and so intently did 
he appear to be occupied by his contemplation 
of the portrait, that her entrance had not disturbed 
him. 

Her first motion was to withdraw; but her 
curiosity, and the secret hope at length of its being 
gratified, detained her. A deep sigh escaped from 
Leslie. Emotions which he appeared struggling 
to repress seemed to overpower him. He started, 
and wiped the portrait with his handkerchief as 
though a tear had dropped upon it. He pressed it 
to his lips and heart; then gazed upon it again 
and again ; and laying it on the table, concealed 
bis face with his hands, and resting his forehead 
upon the miniature, sobbed almost convulsively. 

Agnes watched him in breathless silence; she 
fell unable either to retreat or to advance; the 
contemplation of so much feeling where she had 
been so often led to suppose there was none ; the 
sighs w’hich now rapidly succeeded each other as 
he gave way to the sensations which seemed to be 
overpowering him ; altogether created in her own 
oosom an emotion which kept her silent and 


impeded her utterance, ner heart beat quickly : 
a tear of sympathy for sufferings, which she attri- 
buted to unrequited love, sufferings, the acuteness 
of which her own recollection taught her, and 
which none can feel like woman, trembled in her 
eye. Yet, sensible of the impropriety of intruding 
thus upon his secret sorrows, she wished to gain 
the door unobserved, and to leave him ignorant 
that there had been any witness to such un- 
equivocal demonstrations of an unhappy attach- 
ment. 

But she was too late; her first movement struck 
upon the ear of Leslie; he started, gazed for an 
instant wildly upon Agnes, then seizing the minia- 
ture, closed it hastily, and grasped it with an 
energy which seemed to say, “ None shall take my 
only treasure from me,” held it against his breast. 
Neither of them could speak for a moment. He 
gazed at her with an intensely inquiring eye, 
as though he would ascertain if she had penetrated 
his secret ; and she was too confused by the nature 
of the scene she had contemplated, and the sud- 
denness of the discovery, to utter a syllable. 

At length recovering herself, she repressed the 
expression of sympathy which was her first im- 
pulse ; she attempted to address him with an air 
of badinage, and approaching him — “ So, so. Sir 
Robert Leslie, I find the world does indeed belie 
your heart when it has designated it as insen- 
sible.” 

“M rs. Trevor — madam — I beseech,” stammered 
out Leslie. 

“Nay, nay, Sir Robert; but may I not know — 
may not the friendship which exists between us 
— I mean between you and Mr. Trevor, give 
me a privilege, where I perceive your are far from 
happy 1” 

“ O ! no, no, no 1” exclaimed Leslie, ener- 
getically. 

“ May I not ask 1 Pernaps I might be of 
service — ” 

“ Of service ! — you ! you ! — oh, no, no, no !” 
and a sigh burst from his bosom, so deep, that Ag- 
nes almost imagined that his heart w'ould have 
broken with its utterance. She was affected, deeply 
affected; her words no longer flow’ed freely — they 
faltered on her lips — she became silent and con- 
fused — he gazed at her for a moment — clasped his 
hands wildly together — appeared on the point of 
speaking, and rushed precipitately out of the 
library, leaving Agnes astonished at the extent 
of his agitation and alarmed at her own emo- 
tions. 

For a moment after his departure she remained 
silent. How wrongly has this man, thought she, 
been estimated by that world which has pronounced 
him as unfeeling'* How wrong to imagine him 
cold-hearted ! Where there is so much genuine 
feeling united with so much talent, there must be 
virtue. Such were the reflections which passed 
through her mind when Flounce came running into 
the library, and exclaimed, “ Bless me, ma’am, 
what can be the matter with Sir Robert Leslie V’ 

So simple a question, but so accordant with her 
present thought, startled Agnes. 

“ The matter with Sir Robert Leslie, girl ] why, 
what should be the matter ?” 

“ Oh, nothing, ma’am, only he nearly ran over 
me just now in the grea^ avenue,” said Flounce; 


76 


THE ROUfi. 


“ and in his haste and confusion, for he was con- 
fused. I assure you, rna’am, he dropped this.” And 
Agnes again started, and felt the color come in 
double tides to her cheeks as she saw the iden- 
tical red morocco case in which she had so recently 
seen Leslie shut up the miniature he had been 
contemplating. 

“ And why did you not return it 

“ I called after him, ma’am ; but he was out of 
sight in an instant: and I thought the best thing 
I could do, ma’am, was to bring it to you,” said 
Flounce. 

“ I hope you havn’t had the imprudence to open 
it]” said her lady; “it would have been very 
wrong if you had.” 

“ Oh dear no, ma’am — not for the world — I 
would not do such a thing for the world. It shuts 
with a spring, I think, for I could not find out the 
way — I mean — that is — ,” and Flounce stam- 
mered — with a kind of half confession of an unsuc- 
cessful attempt. 

“ Go, give it to Sir Robert’s servant.” 

“To Monsieur La Tour, ma’am ]” 

“ Yes — yet stay” — then in a low voice — “he may 
not like to trust it to his care. I had better take it 
myself and deliver it, with the assurance that it 
has been unopened. Give it to me, and you 
need mendon nothing to his servant of the circum- 
stance.” 

“ Oh, certainly not, ma’am — you may depend 
upon me, ma’am. Shall I lay out your last blonde 
dress for dinner to-day, ma’am, or will you have the 
silver tissue ]’^ 

“ Any thing you please,” said Agnes, as her 
eyes were fixed intently on the miniature case, aud 
away tripped the femmt-de-chamhrt to her avoca- 
tions of the toilet. 

Agnes contemplated the picture case for some 
minutes in silence ; she turned it round in her 
hand, and looked at both sides of it as though she 
expected to discover whose resemblance it contain- 
ned from the outside. 

The temptation to open it came strong upon her. 
Curiosity, our great mother’s vice, became ab- 
solutely intense ; yet still she resisted the inclina- 
tion, though her eyes were riveted to the case. 
Argument after argument entered into her mind as 
an excuse for the gratification of her desire to see 
the miniature ; but the innate delicacy of her mind 
prevailed over her curiosity ; and she was about 
placing it in some secure drawer until she saw Les- 
lie to return it to him, when, at an accidental pres- 
sure upon the spring, the cover flew open, and the 
portrait was displayed to her astonished and almost 
unbelieving sight. She started — the blood rushed 
to her face, and then back again to her heart : she 
breathed almost convulsively, as she exclaimed, 
“ Good God ! what do I see ] Can I believe my 
eyes ] my own portrait ! ! !” 

A sickness came over her heart ; a dizziness 
spread itself over her sight; she sunk almost faint- 
ing into her chair, and her hand with the picture 
fell listlessly by her side. Still she did not let it 
drop. 

A few seconds recovered her, and she again 
looked upon the portrait. It was indeed a striking 
resemblance, and must have been painted by one 
who had studied her features well. As she knew 
Leslie painted, and could not imagine that he 


would venture to employ any artist in such a task, 
she attributed the portrait to his own hands ; and 
a feeling of tenderness, accompanied by a senti- 
ment of gratitude, not unmixed with pleasure, 
stole over her as she mentally confessed that his 
memory in absence must have been very faithful to 
have produced so striking a likeness. She resisted 
this feeling with all the remaining strength of her 
mind ; for the sudden surprise had completely un- 
nerved her. A thousand recollections now crowded 
upon her to convince her of W'hat the portrait and 
his recent agitation too plainly told ; a thousand 
circumstances were now accounted for which had 
hitherto appeared mysterious. Her mind became 
confused ; tears started in her eyes ; but seemed 
immediately scorched up by the intensity of her 
feelings. A dangerous contrast between such a 
proof of attachment and the neglect of Trevor oc- 
curred to her imagination, and it was in vain that 
she strove to banish the unwelcome comparison. 
The exclamation of “ Oh ! Trevor, why hast thou 
not loved like this?” burst from her lips ; and she 
continued absorbed in the contemplation of the 
portrait, recalling the dangerous recollections of the 
sighs and tears that Leslie had breathed and shed 
over it — of the agitation he betrayed at her en- 
trance — and the feeling ama unting almost to agony 
that he seemed to endure when, with a convulsive 
effort, he repressed the utterance of his secret, 
which she now plainly felt he had almost, and fear- 
ed that he had quite betrayed. 

As these thoughts and these recollections came 
over her, and convinced her of the necessity of re- 
sisting them, she also began to think how she 
should conduct herself with regard to the picture ; 
to return it herself was impossible ; to permit her 
maid to do it, was not only to run the risk of her 
discovering whose portrait it was, but it was tacitly 
permitting him to retain a resemblance of her, 
which decidedly ought not to be the case. To des- 
troy it occurred to her mind; but then her maid 
might tell La Tour, and La Tour would undoubted- 
ly tell his master of her having found it, and of tlie 
manner in which she disposed of it. 

To prevent the restoration of the portrait to the 
hands of Leslie, and to keep him in ignorance 
of her knowledge of it, was the desideratum to be 
arrived at ; but no scheme that she could contrive 
was likely to accomplish this. 

Poor Agnes was utterly unused to plotting; 
her mind and disposition, as open as the day, 
never yet had had occasion for a subterfuge of any 
sort or kind. Yet here she felt the necessity for 
concealment; felt it for her own sake, and fldt 
it for Leslie’s; since it was from no fault, no 
presumption of his, but from mere unavoidable 
accident, that she had obtained a knowledge of his 
secret, and our first parents scarcely repented 
more of the acquisition of their knowledge through 
disobedience, than she did of that w hich she had 
obtained within the last quarter of an hour by the 
accidental gratification of her curiosity. 

Her situation seemed surrounded with difficul- 
ties, and she was still contemplating the portrait, 
and still pondering on the best method of extri- 
cating herself from them, without either betraying 
Leslie or compromising herself, when she started 
horror-struck from the fauteuil on which she w'a? 
sitting, on hearing the exclamation of — 


THE ROU^. 


77 


“What a striking likeness! never saw such 
a resemblance in my life ; a Chalons in point 
of style; a Stump in point of coloring; a Drum- 
mond in point of expression. Pray, Mrs. Trevor, 
let me examine it more closely ; for if there is any 
thing I do understand, it is painting.” And before 
Mrs. Trevor could prevent him, D’Oyley had pos- 
sessed himself of the miniature, and was criti- 
cising its merits through his glass. 

“ Quite a Lawrence in miniature, I declare — 
as perfect an ivory as I ever beheld ; the mind 
glowing in the features. You must know, ma’am, 
expression in portrait-painting is everything; as 
I said to Jackson the other day, when he was 
just touching up Lady Sarah’s chin, attend to 
the expression ; for there is more mind in Lady 
Sarah’s chin, than in the eyes, nose, and mouth of 
many other people ; you know Lady Sarah’s whole 
character lies in her chin ; and if there is any 
thing I understand, it is expression.” 

Mr. D’Oyley — Mr. D’Oylcy!” exclaimed Agnes; 
and she spoke in a tone which electrified the poor 
busy creature. 

“ Ma — a — a — m 

But she immediately felt the imprudence of 
giving way to her anger ; and therefore forcing a 
smile, she modulated her voice to a softer tone, and 
said — “ Mr. D’Oyley, you frightened — I mean, sur- 
prised me.” 

“ Really — did I — well really now. I am posi- 
tively sorry, and positively beg pardon ; but the 
fact was, wanting to see Trevor to say many 
happy returns of to-day — his birth-day — I thouglit 
he was in the library, and I came in unannounced. 
I always think an unexpected congratulation gives 
the must pleasure; and if there is anything 1 
do understand, it is giving pleasure,” 

How severely Agnes felt the contrary, it is 
needless to observe : she held her hand out for the 
portrait; but D’Oyley still retained it. 

“ It is excelient, really excellent; but it wants a 
touch here — one touch ; and the drapery, a little 
stilF; this sleeve should have been a gigoty and 
this kerchief couleur ctrultan. It would have 
assorted better with the character of the picture ; 
and if there is anything I do understand, it is 
cliaracter.” 

“ Sir — sir — pray — pray — the portrait — somebody 
— ’’and she was going with her usual openness to 
betray her fears, when D’Oyley, returning the minia- 
ture, interrupted her. 

“ Ha ! I see how it is — see it all in a moment — 
Trevor’s birth-day. The portrait a present — a 
pleasing surprise ! Well, if there is any thing I 
do understand, it is guessing. Happy Trevor ! to 
have a wif* who — ” At this moment Trevor en- 
tered the horary — she had still the portrait in her 
hand. “ Ha, Trevor,” continued the pertinacious 
D’Oyley, “ you are arrived just in time — just in 
time to be the happiest fellow on earth; such a 
likeness was never seen ! Her very self — nay, ma- 
dam. for once let a poor forlorn bachelor witness 
the pleasures of connubial attention, if he cannot 
enjoy them. Nay — nay — I must tell him.” Agnes 
had no power to interrupt him: her tongue seemed 
to cling to the roof of her mouth. “I can’t con- 
tain it — 'Frevor ! Mrs. ’Frevor has the best likeness 
oi herself — the most delightful miniature — as a pre- 
sent for you. Now — pray, madam give it him. 


There — there it is; and now, I take my leave; for 
if there is anything I do understand, it is the proper 
time for every thing.” 

“ A miniature! — a present for me?” said Trevor, 
as he took the portrait from her resistless and 
trembling hand. “ A striking resemblance indeed, 
and I am grateful for it. But why — w^hy this agi- 
tation 1 — why do you tremble 1 Ah ! I know, Ag- 
nes, that you think, perhaps, that my late conduct 
has not deserved such attention. But, believe me, 
my inattention is only apparent: the calls on my 
time — our station in society — the necessity for d'> 
ing as other people do.” 

“ Oh, Trevor !” exclaimed Agnes, with a falter 
ing voice; and this little apologetic appeal was 
softening her heart towards him; and she was go- 
ing to disclaim the picture, the present, and the 
reproach, when the difficulty of the explanation 
struck her again speechless. She saw no way of 
making it with honor to herself, or safety toothers, 
for to such a mind as that of Agnes, to have in- 
spired an illicit love, even involuntarily, appeared a 
degradation, if not a crime. The recollection of 
what she imagined had been Leslie’s long series of 
sufierings — the suddenness of the discovery — the 
circumstances attending it — had, in the first moment 
of surprise, seduced her heart to take a more lenient 
view of the event, than even the very short time 
which had elapsed would permit her to retain ; and 
the sight of her husband — a word or twm of return- 
ing tenderness, recalled to her all the criminality 
of the passion she had pitied ; and her attempt at 
explanation, proved to her the predicament in which 
she was placed. 

Trevor still attributed her agitation to the first 
cause to which he had ascribed it ; and still at- 
tempted to soothe it by a continuance of the same 
defence with which he had commenced, when he 
was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Leslie; 
who, with a perturbed step and anxious counte- 
nance, almost rushed into the apartment. 

Thunderstruck at the sight of Trevor with his 
arm round Agnes, who seemed ready to sink with 
agitation, and at seeing the portait in his hand, his 
first thoughts were, that a fit of indignation had 
induced her to give it to her husband, and explain 
to whom it belonged, and how it had come into her 
possession. He cursed in his heart the folly and 
caprice of women ; and was bitterly repenting his 
experiment, when he was relieved by Trevor’s pre- 
senting him the portrait, and demanding his opinion 
of its resemblance. 

Astonished, and, with all his sang-froid^ uncer- 
tain how to act, and whether Trevor spoke satiri- 
cally, and with a full knowledge of the circum- 
stances, he cast a rapid glance at Agnes. Her 
face was, however, hid upon her husband’s shoul- 
der. He could catch no instructions — no hint — 
for his reply ; and he again inwardly and bitterly 
cursed the sex and its caprices. 

Trevor, however relieved him by asking — “ Is 
it not an excellent likeness] You must not laugh 
at my little old-fashioned wife, Leslie. But this is 
my birth-day ; and it being only the second since 
our marriage, she has planned this little surprise 
for me. Is it not her very self !” 

“ It is indeed, a most excellent likeness ;” and 
again he cast his eyes towards Agnes. Trevor 
had now changed his uosition, and by approach 


78 


THE ROUE. 


ing, had placed himself between Leslie and his 
wife. 

Agnes’ eyes were not this time turned from 
him. They followed her clasped hands, which 
were raised silently to heaven, as though attesting 
her innocence ; w hile an almost impatient motion 
of her head negatived the idea that she had been 
at ail accessory to the deceit. 

“ The artist has certainly done his best, and 
succeeded admirably,” pursued Trevor. “ Did you 
ever see a greater effect produced by any artist in 
the world 

“ Oh ! an immense effect, certainly,” rejoined 
Leslie, with another glance at Agnes, which was 
this time returned with indignation. 

“ Really, my love,” continued Trevor, ** you 
must patronise the fellow, he must be a genius; 
and then, he has kept your secret so well; who is 
hel — who is he, Agnes]” 

“ It is necessary, Trevor, that — that I should 
explain :” she hesitated. “ Sir Robert Leslie can 
inform you best.” Her courage rose with the 
determination to act rightly ; and the whole history 
of the portrait was evidently coming, when Leslie 
interrupted her with — “Yes, yes, Trevor; it is 
an artist of my recommendation ; one under my 
patronage; and I recommended him to Mrs. Tre- 
vor’s attention, as one w'ho would exert himself to 
the utmost to deserve her future favors.” 

An appealing look to Agnes, and her own fears 
of the too probable consequences of an eciaircisse- 
inentj rendered her again silent; and made her, 
for the first time in her life, the tacit partner 
in a falsehood. 

Leslie saw that he was safe ; and feeling that 
his continued security depended upon the present 
absence of Trevor, he reminded him of some 
nutual engagements for the morning, and hurried 
iim away; leaving Agnes. a prey to the most 
mortifying reflections, and under the painful con- 
viction that if she had not herself acted with 
duplicity, she had aided the deceit of another 
bv a silence which her conscience condemned 
as criminal. 


CHAPTER XXXL 

( 

LESLIE TO VILLARS. 

’Tis done, Fred, ’tis done — she knows that 
I love her, and has nothing to blame but her own 
curiosity; that is certainly a prevalent vice with 
the sex. It drove Eve out of Paradise, and Fatima 
into the Blue Chamber. 

It was nothing but curiosity now that gave 
Agnes the knowledge of my passion. I had in- 
stilled into her head that I loved somebody, and 
she could never be easy till she knew who it was — 
never once guessing it was herself: who could 
it be, w hile she was in the w'orld, and near me 1 
But how did you do it] How did it come about] 
methinks I hear you ask. Why, then, Fred, to 


tell you. the honest truth, I put my scheme of the 
portrait into execution — contrived to be discovered 
weeping and sighing over it — you know I can 
weep and sigh upon occasions — refused to tell 
whose resemblance it was — managed to drop it, 
and through the medium of Mrs. Flounce to place 
it in the hands of Agnes. Her curiosity did the 
rest, and discovered her own miniature, wet with 
my tears. Oh, Fred ! I would have given worlds 
to have witnessed the first effect of the discovery — 
to have seen the color that mantled her cheek as 
she perused the lineaments of her own sweet face: 
then the succeeding paleness at the idea of being 
loved — as she knows and feels that I can love; for 
I have contrived to instil that idea into her mind* 
Perhaps, too, a starting tear — a fluttering about 
the heart — a slight sensation of suffocation, and a 
half-suppressed sigh, might have accompanied the 
unexpected discovery. Do you think she did sigh, 
Fred] Unexpected ! and was it unexpected ] Oh, 
yes ! she is above all artifice ; and therefore you 
will say, much more likely to be its victim. Do 
you really think so] — what a pity ! 

Well, Fred, the comedy was played to the life: 
I acted the passionate and despairing lover, and 
Flounce the chambermaid to a miracle. But there 
was one actor in the scene who certainly was never 
included in the dramatis personae of my piece — 
and this was Trevor himself. How the devil he 
came there, f am even now at a loss to determine: 
but imagine, Fred, on my return, intending to act 
the anxious loser of my only treasure, and to per- 
ceive and make use of the effect of the discovery 
which had taken place; for I was not summoned 
by Flounce till she had ascertained that her mis^ 
tress had actually opened the miniature: imagine, 
I say, my finding the portrait in the hands of Tre- 
vor himself, looking much more conjugal (curse the 
fellow^!) than I have seen him look these last six 
months. At first, I imagined, like Lady Teazle, she 
had told the truth; and that, like poor Joseph Sur- 
face, I should be bowed out for my morality, and 
cut off from my hopes for ever. But, no ! she was 
too sensible a womr.n to make mischief; or, per- 
haps, too much afraid of the consequences of an 
expose. Trevor’s manner soon convinced me that 
all was safe. He thanked her for the portrait, as 
though it had iieen a present from her to him; thanked 
her in a voice of so much more tenderness than 
usual, that I could have cursed him. I believe I did 
indulge in a little mental imprecation. Could sh« 
have wilfully deceived him] I can scarcely think 
it. Her face was alternately pale and red — tha 
heaving of her bosom displayed the agitation of her 
mind — her eye, half filled with tears, fell beneath 
my inquisitive glance. Trevor inquired who was 
the artist that had painted the picture. I suppose he 
wants a portrait of Lady Flora! Still she was si- 
lent — for how should she know', poor soul ! and I 
suppose no miniature-painter presented his card to 
her remembrance at that moment; so to relieve her 
from the dilemma, I answered that it was a young 
artist whom I had recommended to the patronage of 
Mrs. Trevor, whose favors he was most anxious to 
receive and deserve. That wms w’ell thrown in, 
Fred, W'asn’t it] considering that she no douht 
thinks me the painter. Had you seen her look — 
her full eyes first fell on me with a glance of indig- 
nation — very ungrateful, considering the lie was 


THE KOUfi. 


79 


intended for her benefit — they were then cast up 
to heaven, or rather to the ceiling; and her hands 
seemed to move involuntarily, in some silent appeal. 
I saw the truth was trembling on her lips, and 
ready to embody itself into utterance. It was then 
my turn to make a silent appeal to my heaven; 
which I did by looking at her unperceived by Tre- 
vor, who was still contemplating the portrait, and 
who helped me at this moment by exclaiming that he 
had “ never known an artist produce more efifect.’’ 
I thougnt so too; for the efiTect was “prodigious,’’ 
as the Dominie would say ; and before Agnes could 
recover herself, I hurried him out of the room, half 
ashamed, as he was becoming, of the neglect with 
which he had treated a woman who had still so 
much tenderness for him, as to make her show him 
such an attention as this present of her portrait. 
Credulity certainly accompanies matrimony ; and 
this is undoubtedly one of the wise laws of the 
creation for keeping the peace. 

Thus, Fred, you see how we stand. Agnes 
knows my love; and what is better, has given at 
least a tacit assent to what she knew to be a false- 
hood ; and, better than all, that falsehood was to 
deceive her husband. I have lost my portrait, it is 
true ; but I have made one step towards gaining 
the original. 

. And now, I dare say, considering the vehemence 
of my last letter, that you are astonished at my 
coolness, after all these surprising circumstances. 
But the fact is, that my impatience was increased 
to such fever velocity, merely for the bare want of 
letting Agnes know of my love. It was insup- 
portable to live with her, to converse with her, and 
yet find no opportunity of disclosing my passion. 
But that once done, my heart is relieved — it has 
leisure to repose itself. I begin to see my way; I 
feel like the general, who, all enthusiasm before 
action, becomes cool and calculating the moment 
the first shell is thrown, or the first shot fired ; or, 
like the inventor of the water rocket, my catamaran 
being launched, I shall lay upon my oars, and wait 
for the explosion ; for I am much mistaken in my 
calculations, if the knowledge of my passion does 
not fire a train of ideas and feelings in the heart 
of Agnes, of the existence of which she had no 
conception, till this discovery acted like the match 
to enlighten her on the subject. 

Besides, to tell you a truth, Fred, but this, you 
know, is entirely entrt nous, there is among the 
little protegees of Mrs. Trevor’s charity in the 
neighborhood, one object deserving of a better fate, 
and of something warmer than charity ; she lives 
in a cottage covered with woodbines, and ministers 
to the wants of an aged parent; but with all her 
cjire, she will soon see that a fe\^ guineas will ad- 
minister much more solid comforts than mere filial 
attention ; and she is fast coming to this same 
CA>nclusion, or I am much mistaken. You know, 
Fred, talents such as mine ought not to lie idle ; 
and I cannot suffer my grande passion to scorch 
me quite to a cinder. But to return to the effect 
of this discovery upon the unsuspecting heart of 
Agnes. 

Ha ! La Tour, and with a portentous counte- 
nance ! “ Une lettre timbree de Florence !’’ “ From 
Villars, I suppose]” “Non, monsieur.” “For 
me]” “ Non, monsieur ; poor madame.” “Then 
why bring it here ] Oh, well, I see — ^you thought 


it might perhaps relate to me, and therefore have 
abstracted it from Mrs. Trevor’s packet, and brought 
it for my perusal, lest it should betray — humph. 
La Tour, you have been guilty of a vile breach /of 
trust, I believe of felony ; what do you think will 
become of you for this ] No, no ; you need not 
take it away. The mischief’s done ; so put it down ; 
but mind in future, — in future La Tour — should 
you ever perceive a letter from Italy again — from 
Italy mind— you kanderstand me ]” “Oui, monsieur.” 
“ Then take that purse, and divide its contents 
between yourself and Mrs. Flounce. Ah, La 
Tour, I am afraid of your morals, I must put that 
girl on her guard ;” and away he goes, with a grin 
ffom ear to ear, and with his shoulders half a yard 
higher than nature intended them. That fellow 
has no conscience, Fred ; yet in his master’s ser- 
vice he is certainly a most remarkably acute, sen- 
sible d d scoundrel. 

Now for the letter, upon which I have not yet 
cast my eyes, for I never suffer La Tour to inter- 
rupt my writing : zounds ! would you believe it ] 
the cramp hand, the very same handwriting of the 
cursed intruder in my affairs at the Lago Mag- 
giore ; — what can there be in common between him 
and Agnes ] 

I have read the cursed scrawal : it is in the same 
hand, and by the same author as that which caused 
all the mischief with the lady of the lake : but I 
will copy it, that is, if my indignation does not 
induce me to tear it to atoms before I can complete 
it. So read. 

“ Although my former warning was disregarded, 
once more do I ^dressyou, once more do I venture 
to the brink of the precipice upon which you 
stand, to save you. (You see, Fred, they are 
old correspondents.) You are receiving a pro- 
fligate to your friendship ; fostering a serpent ir, 
your bosom, and bestowing your confidence on 
one whose only triumph and pleasure is in the 
destruction and dishonor of your sex. God 
forbid that even a supposition contrary to you? 
honor should enter my imagination; (compl • 
mentary, Fred ;) but she that confides in her ow* 
strength, and not on that rock of ages which re> 
ligion has built up for the protection of virtue arn: 
of principle, (rather methodistical,) is never saft 
from the artifice of the tempter — from the wily de- 
deceits of the licentious. Beware of Leslie! (You 
see he knows my name, and that I am the profli- 
gate received to her friendship, the serpent fostered 
in her bosom — not yet, Fred,) He is an unprin- 
cipled scoundrel, (hard words, Fred,) whom 
neither the laws of God nor man control; who 
sacrifices to his own selfishness and sensuality the 
virtue, the peace, the happiness, and life of his 
victims. I am now in search of one betrayed by 
his arts, and deserted by his villany. Were it not 
for this and for my determination to do justice to 
injured innocence, I would be even now at your 
side, to expose to yourself and to the world the arts 
and the true character of this deceiver. Believe 
not in the speciousness of the exterior; remember 
the serpent’s sting is not the less venomous from 
the variegated colors of his skin. (Quite meta- 
phorical, Fred.) Remember, too, and bitterly do 
I regret it, that had my warning with regard to 
your husband met with attention, you would not 
now have been a neglected wife. (I owe him a 


so 


THE ROUfi. 


pod turn for reminding her of that, however, 
Tred, and I’ll pay him all I owe him one day or 
tther.) Neglect not iny advice a second time ; dis- 
»ard this man from your society ; contamination 
6 in his touch ; but justice is at hand.” 

There, Fred, there is this precious letter, which 
! think quite as well in my hands as in those of 
^gnes, and therefore, upon second thoughts, she 
shall not see it. Now, Fred, you must be on the 
alert ; this letter is dated Florence, three weeks 
back, and he was doubtless on his way then to the 
Lago Magiore. Ascertain instantly what is do- 
ing there. You see he has discovered my real 

name, and may now put in force that cursed . 

But you will prevent this. I would myself come 
over, but I cannot quit the field with the battle al- 
most won. Upon your exertions, therefore, 1 rely. 
Spare no means ; use gold like wheat, but sow it 
properly. There is nothing that cannot be bought 
in Italy, if you go to the proper market. Remem- 
ber this, and discover this accursed intruder, that 
he may feel what it is to cross the path of Leslie. 
I must gallop away my indignation — so farewell 
till the evening, when I must again let my feel- 
ings evaporate in thus epistolising you. 




CHAPTER XXXII. 


What must be the sensations of a woman 
when she first feels the influence of a guilty love 
growing up in her heart, in spite of all her oppo- 
sition ; who strives, and finds that she strives in 
vain to stifle a flame to which her determination 
to master it only adds fuel 1 With what horror 
must a virtuous mind view its unabating progress, 
in spite of all her resistance, and feel barrier after 
barrier broken down, till there seems to be no es- 
caping from the resistless torrent of a passion that 
threatens to overwhelm virtue, honor, and every 
thing that is valuable to woman, in its pro- 
gress ! 

To feel the full influence of such a passion, and 
to feel and know the full measure of its guiltiness — 
to have the inclination to subdue its influence, and 
yet be sensible of the want of power to do so — to 
know the destroying effects of its progress, and yet 
to feel it march on, and on, and on, like the lava 
of a volcano, burning up every thing that is whole- 
some in its passage, till it requires an eternal watch 
upon the minutest action or circumstance, lest the 
senses betray the heart, and all be lost in an un- 
guarded moment, is a misery, a wretchedness, a 
penance, which can be known by none but those 
who have been doomed to feel a guilty passion, 
and know it to be guilty, and to feel it to be irre- 
sistible. 

It is in vain the heart turns to all its early re- 
collections of virtue; in vain it contemplates the 
horror with which the same guilty feelings have 
been heard, and read of, and blamed, in others ; 
and in vain a woman looks down the precipice, of 
which her being so near the brink, only renders 


the langers more conspicuous, and from which 
thesw* very darigers sometimes give the impetus to 
plunge into the abyss. 

Like the traveller in the burning forest, who 
meets the raging flame at every turn he makes to 
attempt an escape, the victim flies to any opening 
f fiat gives a glimmering hope, but recedes only raore 
overpowered by the influence of the fire that threat- 
ens to consume him. 

It is thus with the heart that suffers the first feel- 
ings of such a passion to obtain a temporary influ- 
ence over the imagination. Like the lion’s whelp, 
it may be crushed and destroyed in its infancy, but 
becomes the overpowering master, and tyraiU, and 
destroyer in its maturity. In the commencement 
of this predicament did the unfortunate Agnes find 
herself. Nor was Leslie very wrong in his calcu- 
lations on the state of her heart. Almost deserted 
by her husband — the husband of her young love — 
with all her best feelings thrown back upon them- 
selves, and her warm heart and affections chilled 
by the increasing coldness of him to whom they 
were once devoted, and these affections outraged by 
infidelities which his love of fashion had rendered 
notorious, it is not much to be wondered at that 
Trevor’s hold upon her heart should be loosened ; 
and this once accomplished, it is astonishing the 
rapid progress that the violated feelings make tow ards 
indifference. 

Leslie was also right in calculating that Agnes pos- 
sessed a heart which could not long exist in a state 
of perfect indifference; he knew that deprived of 
the appui which she had looked for in her husband, 
that it would not be long before her heart wmuld 
seek another; and although he had insiduously 
spoke of nothing but friendship, he was assured that 
if that sentiment were once attained, others and 
warmer ones, were likely to follow in the breast of 
one whose feelings were so acutely sensible as those 
of Agnes. 

Agnes herself had no suspicion of the nature of 
her own sentiments; and had any body warned her 
of their tendency, and attempted to represent her 
danger, she would have laughed at the warning as 
useless, or spurned at the precaution as insulting. 
Surprised, however, into a discovery of the passion 
of Leslie for herself, the existence of which had 
never for a moment crossed her imagination, she 
trembled to find the effect it had upon her feelings; 
and shrunk from the consciousness that there was 
something in her own heart w'hich prevented her 
from treating this discovery with the indignation 
which her sense of right, and propriety, and virtue, 
convinced her it deserved. 

She felt as though she had been sleeping on a 
bed of flowers, and had been awakened by a ser- 
pent; and it was in vain that she attempted to shut 
her eyes and dream again. The uproar of her feel- 
ings was too great to deceive her; and she blushed 
in agony to find the certainty of the only evil that 
could render her state more wretched. And then 
came the degrading recollection of her tacit con- 
sent to a falsehood ; quite equal in her own correct 
ideas to the invention of the falsehood itself She 
felt degraded in the eyes of her servants, in the 
opinion of Leslie, and, what was worse than all, in 
her own estimation; and yet she saw no way of 
remedying this evil that was not pregnant with 
danger to the lives of others and to her own reputa- 


THE roue. 


81 


N 

V 


tion. AVhat she was to do, became the first ques- 
tion, and her own sense of right and virtue, her in- 
creasing knowledge of the state of her own feelings, 
all suggested that a separation, a complete sepa- 
ration from Leslie, was absolutely necessary ; and 
her false ideas of the generosity of his character 
induced her to imagine that she had only to hint 
that this was necessary to her comfort and peace 
mind, to induce his peedy acquiescence. 

At this moment she caught a glimpse of him 
through an opening in the park trees, galloping at 
a most furious rate; and, quitting the beaten road, 
she afterwards saw him take the country, clearing 
every thing in his progress. She had before wit- 
nessed this method of riding down his feelings, and 
she judged that this was his attempt at present. 
She was determined to make use of his absence to 
w'rite her request ; to speak it she found impossible. 
She might trust her handwriting, but she felt she 
could not trust her voice. She seized her pen, but 
found the task more difficult than she had imagined. 
Sheet after sheet was commenced and destroyed ; it 
seemed to her impossible to express her ideas 
coolly, and as she considered they ought to be ex- 
pressed. One letter, on a reperusal, appeared too 
kind, another too severe; and severity she did not 
think called for by an act that was involuntary, and 
by a discovery that had been purely accidental. She 
continued these attempts till the first bell rang: 
when finding herself still too much agitated 
to meet her party, she sent her apologies, and 
determined to pass the evening in her own 
room. 

Leslie returned from his ride with his feelings of 
all kinds in some degree allayed by the violent ex- 
ercise he had taken. He dressed himself quickly, 
and hurried into the drawing-room, anxious to see 
what would be his first reception from Agnes. His 
oavn conduct was quickly determined. He had 
clothed his features in humility and repentance; 
intended only to address her distantly ; appear to 
avoid coming in contact with her, but at the same 
time contrive that she should catch his eyes fixed 
upon her when he might consider himself unob- 
served, with such an expression of deep affliction 
as, he thought, might induce her to view his pas- 
sion “more in sorrow than in anger;” and this 
was all he anticipated at present. Once admit- 
ted to her confidence while she had a know- 
ledge of his feelings, he thought his way would be 
easy. 

With this view, he threw himself on a fauteuil 
in an attitude of deep abstraction, but still in a 
position where he could command the entrance. 
Every time the door opened, he cast an unobserv- 
ed, inquiring glance ; but no Agnes appeared ; nor 
did he know, until the second bell rang and dinner 
wus announced, that an apology had been made 
for her non-appearance. Thus his acting had been 
useless ; but though disappointed in the speedy 
eclaircissement of the morning’s interview, which 
the drawingroom might have afforded, he was ra- 
ther induced to augur favorably for himself from 
her absence. If it arose from feeling unsubsided, 
there were hopes ; if from anger, there were 
hopes still. Anything, he concluded, was better 
for him than the indifference that would bring 
her into society ; and though even this tem- 
porary absence was heart-burning in the present 


situation of affairs, because it prevented his finding 
in her countenance something that might indicate 
the state of her mind, yet upon the whole, he 
was glad of it ; and, being certain that she must 
meet the party who were to assemble the next day, 
he bore his present disappointment philosophi- 
cally. 

During the latter part of dinner, Leslie observed 
La Tour mingling with the servants who were in 
attendance ; and surprised at the circumstance ; 
for he knew that this was generally his tUe-ci-tete 
hour with Mrs. Flounce, he cast many inquiring 
glances at him as he officiously moved about the 
sideboard ; but it was not till the desert had been 
placed on the table, and that the servants were re- 
tiring, that he caught La Tour’s eye fixed upon 
him with that peculiar expression which always 
denoted that something of importance had hap- 
pened ; this look was accompanied by an almost 
imjierceptible beckoning motion of the hand, and 
a slight shrug of the shoulders which seemed to 
say — “ Lord ! lord ! what will this world come 
to ?” 

Leslie knew, by this movement of La Tour, 
that he was wanted ; and he sat upon tenterhooks 
imagining, hoping, and fearing a thousand things 
till the retirement of the ladies gave him an oj)- 
portunity, under the plea of sudden indisposition, 
to quit the dinner-room. Some time after which, 
he resumed his letter to Villars, as follows; — 

LESLIE TO TiLLARS. (In Continuation.) 

Well, Fred, I rode down my indignation as 
furiously as though this demon of the cramp hand- 
writing had. been under my horse’s feet ; or, like the 
felons of some country, the name of which I do not 
recollect, had been tied to his tail. I returned, but 
no Agnes. Illness — how these women lie when 
it serves their turn ! — illness prevented her joining 
us during the evening. For illness read — what, 
Fred] what shall we read] Well, never mind, 
you shall judge. At the conclusion of din- 
ner — by-the-by, the dullest of all dull dinners to 
me — La Tour favored me with one of those looks 
which you, as well as I, know so w^ell, and which 
have summoned us to many a banquet of delight. 
Surprised and curious, you may imagine that I es- 
caped as soon as possible. I found the faithful 
fellow waiting near the vestibule; he put on an 
important look, took out a key, and with the gravity 
of a real lord chamberlain, led the way to my 
dressing room, the door of which, to my surprise, 
he unlocked. Tasked him why he had locked it] 
Still he gave me no answer, but ushering me into 
the room, pointed to a little pink note that lay on 
my dressing table. I won’t tell you how' my heart 
jumped at the sight ; for, though there was no 
superscription, there was no doubting who was my 
correspondent. But how did it get there ] Had 
Flounce brought it] No. Had the Lady given it 
to La Tour ] No. How then ? Why, with her 
usual delicacy, unwilling to trust a servant with 
her secret, she had been her owm twopenny post- 
man, and taking advantage of the dinner time, when 
she supposed every body of course engaged, had 
brought it herself. Think of this, Fred ! — Agnes, 
the beautiful Agnes, the object of all my desires, 
in my dressing room! La Tour saw her — I hato 


82 


THE ROUE 


» 


him fo[ it. Concealed behind the drapery of a 
small bay window, he saw, by the reflection of a 
large glass, the door of the room gently open, and 
then shut. Surprised, he remained silent ; in a 
moment it again opened, and Agnes — mi lady^ as 
La Tour calls her — glided into the room ; with a 
pale face, and in great agitation, she approached 
the dressing table, seemed to hesitate for a moment, 
deposited the note, then clasping her hands, and 
lifting up her eyes to heaven, she hastily quitted 
the apartment. By heavens, Fred, if the note itself 
were not at this moment laying before me, written 
on double wove gilt pink paper, I should dou^^ the 
evidence of my senses, and think it all a dream. 
Well, La Tour, without touching the note— he 
knew I would never have forgiven him if he had — 
immediately placed all my writing apparatus, with 
lights, ready for my reply ; and, locking the apart- 
ment, even against herself, in case she should re- 
pent the step she had taken, came to summon me. 
Her visit to this room while it is mine, has given 
the apartment a delicious sweetness it never had 
before ; the perfumes seem the sweeter, and the 
mirror which reflected her person, the brighter for 
her momentary presence. Oh, La Tour ! what 
would I not have given to have been in your place ! 
I quite hate the fellow for his good fortune. But 
to my note ; you shall have it verbatim, Ma’am- 
selle Scudery, now, would have headed it 

THE BEAUTIFUL AGNES TO THE PERSEVERING 
LESLIE. 

Now read, Fred, with attention. 

“Oh, sir, to what a dreadful alternative has your 
imprudence reduced me ! (Imprudence — only im- 
prudence, you see, Fred.) Compelled, by the un- 
happy circumstances of this morning, either to give 
a tacit consent to the propagation of a falsehood, 
or, by the truth, to run the hazard of involving you 
and others, myself out of the question, in results, 
the idea of whiah makes me tremble, (me, as well 
as others,) I have, to my shame and remorse, pas- 
sively permitted the former ; and, by my silence, 
have given a false ’cobour to a transaction, which 
now, alas, I find it too late to remedy. Sunk in my 
own estimation, degraded in your opinion, (my opi- 
nion, Fred ; you see she wishes to be well with 
me,) perhaps exposed to the suspicions of my ser- 
vant, I see but one way — one only way, to act, so 
as to extricate myself from the dreadful dilemma 
in which these circumstances have placed me, (I 
could point out another, couldn’t I, Fred?) and 
that is, to implore your immediate absence ; and I 
am sensible that, in appealing to the heart and 
good feeling of Sir Robert Leslie,! shall not appeal 
in vain, as he must feel the imperious necessity for 
his departure as much as I do. (Imperious neces- 
sity, Fred !) I reproach you not. I feel all the 
obligations which a series of kindnesses have con- 
ferred on myself and another ; let me, oh let me, 
sir, attribute them to the only legitimate source 
from which they ought to have sprung ; they shall 
then be alone remembered, and that scene of this 
morning buried in oblivion. (Shall it?) You will 
perhaps say that your sudden departure might create 
surprise ; (you see she finds an apology for my de- 
f?.rring it,) but there are many circumstances to 


which it may be attributed ; (you see she can coun- 
sel a little lying upon occasion,) and I am sure 
when you know that it is necessary to the peace of 
one in whose real happiness you have hitherto ap- 
peared to take an interest, you will not refuse to 
depart instantly. (How inhospitable in her own 
house ’) The step I am now taking may be blamed ; 
but as the circumstances themselves preclude tho 
possibility of conversation, (why, pray?) I feel my- 
self justified in adopting it; and I feel, also, that I 
am confiding in a man of honor, who will do his 
utmost to obliterate the effects of an involuntary 
error.” 

There, Fred. As Byron says, 

This note is written upon gilt-edged paper. 

With a neat little crow-quill, slight and new ; 

Her small white hand could hardly reach the taper. 

It trembled as magnetic needles do. 

And that her hand did tremble, the zig-zag direc- 
tion of every line evinces; and just where the 
“ series of my kindnesses” is alluded to, there’s a 
blot, and the ink is a little lighter-collored, as 
though there had been a tear mingled with it, and 
hastily brushed away. Women will sometimes 
shed them on the like occasions. 

Well, Fred, I have weighed every word of this 
epistle — nay, every letter — with the accuracy of 
an alchemist transmuting his materials into the 
precious metal for which he has sold himself to 
Satan ; and with more success than the deluded 
philosopher, since I think I can extract from 

this letter the “ golden hope” that 1 may not 

despair. 

But to go! To quit her! No, no, Agnes. I 
never obeyed a woman but once in this particular ; 
and what did I get for it, some years afterwards, 
but laughter and reproaches ? But I was then a 
boy ; I am now a man, and know my advantages 
too well to throw them away. 

Your dense understanding, Fred, will, I dare 
say, never discover, in the delicacy of this letter 
— in the command it contains — in the very slight 
allusion it makes to my ofience — the hope that I 
derive from it ; but these are things which speak 
to the heart of the lover himself, and to the under- 
standings of nobody else. Well, I must now re- 
ply ; and what do you think that reply will be ? 
It will be to consent to her proposition, to promise 
anything she wishes, to vow absolute obedience to 
her behests. Vows? say you. Yes, Fred, such 
vows as men always make and women always be- 
lieve. I will then make my obedience depend on 
an interview — a last interview I will call it — and I 
will urge such reasons for this interview — such 
pungent reasons, Fred — that she shall think it quite 

right and proper to grant it; and if she does 

why — why then — Good bye, Fred. 

Leslie devoted a greater part of the night to 
the composition of such a tetter as would convince 
Agnes of the sincerity of his intentions, without 
denying the truth of her discovery. He adopted 
her phrase, and represented the “ involuntary” 
nature of his offence, and that it carried its own 
punishment in the never-ending agony which it 
must create in such a heart at his. Then followed 
the promise to obey her, and the request for one 
interview, that h6r advice might strengthen bis 


S3 


THE R0U£. 


resolution : and without this, he adverted to the 
fears of the absolute impossibility of his obedience. 

The Letter once finished, the next step was the 
delivery. Servants, he saw, were not the proper 
medium. His only hop6 of her accepting it at all, 
was her being impressed with certainty that their 
communication was known to no one but them- 
selves, This had, no doubt, been her only motive 
for bringing her own note herself. He must, 
therefore, deliver it into her own hands, or place 
it where it could be seen by no one else. 

He knew that the next day, it being the inten- 
tion to receive several of the gentry, who had 
interest in the county, that she must be early 
in the morning- room. La Tour was therefore 
placed so as to give him notice of her appearance. 
The instant he heard she was there, he dressed 
himself negligently, and, having ascertained from his 
glass, that his privation from sleep had given a cast 
of languor and paleness to his countenance, he 
added to this an appearance of sorrow and re- 
pentance well calculated to make the impression 
he desired, and joined the party. 

Agnes was seated on an ottoman, with her head 
hanging over a portfolio of prints: to which Leslie, 
with his usual quickness, perceived she was paying 
no attention. 

At his entrance, which she seemed to feel, rather 
than to see, the eloquent blood r*ished into her face, 
but receded as quickly to her heart, leaving her 
countenance pale as parian marble. She attempted 
to rise as he slowly, and in a voice scarcely audible, 
“ hoped that her indisposition had passed away.” 
Her reply only trembled on her lips — the sourAls 
were not embodied into words; and she resumed 
her contemplation of the prints in which he appa- 
rently joined her. Every, body else in the room 
was too much occupied in their pursuits to have 
leisure for observation on those of others. 

Leslie and Agnes were silent; but it was the 
silence of thought and feeling. Her hand mechani- 
cally turned over the plates in the folio, and that 
of Leslie as mechanically assisted her. Her eye 
was averted — his fixed upon her countenance 
with an earnestness that would have perused her 
soul. Suddenly she started ; she saw a letter lie 
on the print before her. She cast a hasty glance 
of indignation at Leslie, and saw him standing, 
pale, and silent, with his hands clasped, in an 
altitude of respectful supplication. His position 
was such, that none could see the letter be- 
sides himself. A moment might bring some one 
else to join them in looking over the portfolio. 
Her dread of the letter’s being seen, was quite as 
I great as any other by which she was assailed. 
It was impossible, she saw, for Leslie to resume it 
unperceived, and quite as impossible to leave it 
there. Leslie lifted up the next print so as to 
preclude the possibility of observation, and, by 
slanting its position, he contrived to place the 
letter near her handkerchief and gloves, which 
lay at the edge of the portfolio. Agnes covered 
the letter with her handkerchief, and took them 
L both up, while her whole neck and countenance 
i were suffused with a burning blush. Leslie’s heart 
a beat audibly, and an expression of triumph stole 
i? into his dark eye in spite of his caution and 
his self-command; but it was unncrceived by 
Agnes. 


When the agitation of the moment had a little 
subsided, Leslie whispered in her ear; “Read it 
quickly; its perusal is absolutely necessary. It will 
set your mind at ease ; it will restore the tranquillity 
I have so wantonly destroyed. Grant the request 
it contains, and whatever your commands are they 
shall be obeyed.” So saying, he left the room, 
as though unable longer to control his own feelings, 
and apparently out of respect to hers. 

He^had said this lest it should be her intention to 
return his letter unopened. 

Conscious as Agnes was of the innocence of her 
own intentions, and of the peculiarity of the cir- 
cumstances that rendered her reception of the letter 
necessary, she yet experienced all the agitations of 
guilt, and kept her glance riveted on the engraving 
before her, afraid lest, in looking up, she should 
encounter some eye fixed upon her with suspicion, 
or with scorn. 

Nothing, however, had been observed; and in a 
short time she sought the solitude of her own 
apartment, to deliberate whether the letter should 
be perused or returned unopened. 


,9. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


LESLIE TO VILLABS. 

Ce n^est que le premier pas qui coute — “ When 
a woman hesitates, she’s lost.” Oh, Villars! Vil- 
lars ! how am I trying at this moment to argue my- 
self into a thorough belief of the truth of these 
aphorisms ! for if they are true, then is the most 
lovely she that nature ever formed — then is the wo- 
man who has excited this volcano in my mind, and 
has made my heart overflow with a passion hot as 
the burning lava of Vesuvius — mine. Yes, Villars, 
mine ! — mine ! — mine ! three times mine ; and yet 
not once ! But I must be cool — I must not lose 
my generalship: keep down, thou beating, rebel 
heart, to the principles of that sang-froid which 
can take advantage of the passions of others to 
gratify one’s own. But w'here the devil am I wan- 
dering! This must be Greek to you, Villars ; and 
yet it is no dead language, but the living language 
of a living, beating, thrice-alive heart. 

Thus WTOte Leslie, and thus he proceeded : 

W^ould you believe it, Villars ! this woman, this 
paragon of^beauty and virtue ; this creature of flesh 
and blood, "^and warmth and life, has consented to 
give me an interview. 

And yet why should you not believe it 1 are 
not all the sex the same! is there not a way to 
every woman’s heart ! and the only difficulty is to 
know how to pave it properly. Yes, yes. 

Experience finds 

That sundry ■women are of sundrj' minds. 

With varioris crotchets filled, and hard to please, 

They therefore must be caught by various "wayc ; 

and I have found the way at last to this most im- 
pregnable of female hearts. 




84 


THE ROUE. 


An intervifiw, Villars, at night. — in a grove — 
amidst trees that whisper only to the zephyrs, and 
zephyrs tell no tales — not far from the ocean, 
whose gentle murmurs are the best accompani- 
ments for lovers’ vows, because they come sw^eep- 
ing over the sands, washing out the traces of 
all things there, and sink back into the fathomless 
ocean that produced them. There is a cascade 
too, that comes tumbling from one of the neigh- 
boring heights till it reaches the sea. A cascade ! 
emblematical of a fall. ’Tis the sixth day of the 
month, too, and you recollect the Roman pro- 
verb — 

Sub sextis semper perdita Roma fuit 

How' I catch at every thing that affords a hope ! 
Re still, my heart. But Villars, isn’t this a premier 
pas ? Is not this hesitaltion 1 Do you think, 
Fred, these blessed aphorisms are true ! 

What a tumult am I in ! one would suppose 
that this was the first passion I had ever felt; 
the first woman J. had ever met. 7^hen time too — 
mv watch stands still ; I hate the sun. Joshua 
seems to have revisited the earth, and again to 
have exerted his power over its great luminary. 
And I have to go through the fatigue of a damned 
dinner, too; the parade of folly; the cant of 
society; the nothingness of ceremony and polite- 
ness : my watch dues stand still ; and night will 
never come. 

What is she doing now 1 I would give worlds, 
if I had the invisible powers of the fairy ring, 
to see her in her boudoir. Imagination paints 
her still trembling and hesitating, half-repenting, 
yet still determined. Perhaps, too, she has some 
of the burning anticipations which consume me ; 
the same eager impatience for the coming hour. 
Her hour, perhaps, must come ! and if hers, mine ! 
Dost think, Villars, that our thoughts are really 
meeting in the grove, W'here she has promised 
our persons shall meet so soon. ^Soon did I call 
it 1 it is an age, twenty ages till then. 

Dost think that she paints to her mind’s eye 
the shady cypress 1 for there is a cypress — that is, 
a funeral tree, is it not] emblematical of some- 
thing that must die and be buried. Can this 
be ominous ] Can its omen have any refe- 
rence to her virtue and repentance ] We shall 
see. 

Perhaps at this moment the gurgling waters 
sound in her ear; the moonlight already sleeps 
upon the bank; all is hushed; and her imagina- 
tion may be painting the interview according to 
my wishes, and to my intentions. 

Intentions ! but I am not pledged — have 1 not 
promised] Well, and have I not been pledged, 
and have I not promised before ! Promises, for- 
sooth — and to a woman ! 

1 have made a thousand of them. 

They are tilings indifferent, whether kept or broken. 

Mere venial slips, that grow not near the conscience. 

And who ever was a bit the worse, or a bit the 
wiser, because I forfeited the pledge or broke the 
promise] I beg their pardon, they were the wiser; 
or it was their own fault. 

But is not Trevor your friend, say you ] Cer- 


tainly not; for he has married the only woman 
I ever could have mairicd, I been inclined to 
wear the yoke of matrimony. 

Friend, indeed ! It is true, we have intrigued to- 
gether, got drunk together — our debaucheries have 
been in common, we have met at the same gaming- 
tables, we have committed the same follies ; par- 
ticipated in each others vices ; but is this friend- 
ship ] 

Had the fellow bivouacked with me night after 
night under the same planets on the cold snow-bed ; 
been by my side on a forlorn hope ; mounted a 
breach with me in the face of the enemy’s fire; or 
followed me in a charge of cavalry into the ranks 
of a hollow square, as thou hast done, then indeed I 
might have thought for half an hour before I 
attempted his wife. 

And this I say, Villars, to give you security in 
case your broad shoulders should ever be tempted 
into the pale of matrimony; in case you should 
ever be condemned to hear a lawn-sleeved surpliced 
rogue, whom perhaps we recollect a drunken dog 
at Oxford, mumble over the ceremony which an aj>- 
propriately begins with “ Dearly beloved,’* and ends 
with amazement.” 

Then it is under his own roof; and this you will 
say is a breach of hospitality ; but can that be 
called a violation of hospitality, which only shows 
your appreciation of your hostess] 

Besides, it is not hospitality that courts me here 
— ’tis vanity. He knew that to have “Sir Robert 
Leslie,” was the most certain method of filling his 
house with that circle out of which he cannot live: 
and here I am. Ami to be here without renume- 
ration ? Am I to lend my attraction gratis. Cer- 
tainly not. Therefore, Trevor must pay for his 
vanity, as other people pay for their playthings; 
and if he pays rather too dearly, why he may per- 
haps benefit by the lesson to the end of his life, and 
that will balance our account. 

Depend upon it, Villars, that the man who will 
introduce such fellows as you and I are to his wife 
— and that such a wife — is not to be pitied. W’’e 
must speak the truth sometimes, Fred, and neither 
you nor I are blind to our merits. Besides, sup- 
pose a case — A, has a treasure, which, though a 
real treasure, is valueless in his eyes, and he not 
only does not appreciate it, but he neglects it, and 
leaves it about for every little purloiner to attemi)t 
its larceny. B, on the contrary, knows the value 
of this treasure; covets it with all his soul, intends 
to cherish it, and with such intentions, lays a plan 
for obtaining it out of unworthy hands. The ergo 
I leave to you, Fred. 

This last tirade I believe to be partly owing to 
that sapient sentence in your last, in which you say 
that while I treat Trevor in this manner, what se- 
curity have you in case of marriage ] But I have 
proved that I think this quite a different matter ; 
and yet, by my soul, Fred, your suggestion set my 
fancy gadding, and I began to think what sort of 
a woman you w'ould choose, and whether I should 
like her; and then I felt a kind of involuntary 
chuckling in my throat, not unlike a laugh, ajid I 
thought that the “ Honorable Mrs. Frederick Vil- 
lars,” at full length, would not look badly in my 
list — I dreamed about it, too. Upon the whole, I 
wish you had not put it into my head. However, 
it does not matter, as you have no intention 


THE ROUi:. 


85 


of marrying. Let me know if you have, and I’ll 
grow belter. 

How I wish I could obe3 my worthy grand- 
father’s lesson and take old Time by the fore-lock, 
and pull him on a little. 

Ah ! the first bell: time does get on; my watch 
does not stand still : La Tour — La Tour ! dephhe-toi 
done, I shall soon see my charmer, soon see her 
eyes for the first time cast down with a conscious- 
ness of something that ^he never felt before ; for I 
am more than ever convinced that such a fellow as 
Trevor is, could never awaken all the sensibilities 
of such a heart as hers. There are, I am sure there 
are, a thousand hidden feelings — a thousand con- 
cealed sensations, of which she is herself uncon- 
scious, and which it requires but a master-hand 
to call into existence. 

Be it my task to awaken the sleeping tempters. 
Be^ it my task to teach her of what her heart is 
capable ; and to call up in the paths of passion a 
thousand fragrant flowers, W'hich I shall crop, as 
they spring into blossom, in all their freshness, 
under the genial influence of my own kisses. 

What a pity it is that they will not last ; is it not, 
Fredl But this is not our fault; ’tis nature’s fault, 
or perhaps her virtue, to give a zest to novelty and 
variety. 

And then, too, what has been novel to us may 
pre^rve its novelty to others, you know ; and thus 
the giddy round of life is run, 

My heart becomes easy, now I see that time does 
not absolutely stand still. 

Here is La Tour; so now for my toilet, and 
adieu til! — till when ; why, till then. If thou canst 
not guess the meaning of that “ then,” thou art 
a more stupid clod of your mother-earth than I 
take you for. 


La Tour now spread out the silk stockings, the 
combs, the brushes, the silver-mounted dressing- 
case, and the gold-handled razors, together with all 
the et-ceierse of a perfect gentleman’s toilet, which 
is almost as elaborate in its appointments, as that 
of the most capricious lady of fashion. 

Leslie was no effeminate coxcomb, but he knew 
very well the full value of person, and he conse- 
quently made its preservation and adornment his 
care as far as directing La Tour to study every 
thing that could tend to those objects that did not 
degenerate into effeminacy. 

He knew, too, that the dressing rooms of their 
masters and mistresses were frequently the conver- 
sation of the servants in the steward’s room, and 
he had experienced that these conversations fre- 
quently met the enrs of the masters and mistresses 
themselves ; and he was conscious that an elaborate 
and attentive toilet was never lost upon the mind 
of any female who heard of it by accident. He 
never missed a point ; and tried to be as great a 
man to his valet in the retirement of his dressing 
room, as he was to the society by which he was 
surrounded in the publicity of the drawing room. 
And here let me recommend his example in this 
particular to both sexes; nay, even when alone, 
act always in all particulars as though the eyes of 
society w'ere upon you. Preserve all the etiquettes 
of life when alone and in your family, and they sit 


easily and gracefully upon you in public ; while if 
you relax from their observance in your private 
hours, your manners appear w'hen put on to sit 
awkwardly, like the Sunday clothes of a linen dra- 
per’s apprentice. 

While Leslie was thus occupying his mind, and 
amusing his impatience by attention to his toilette, 
Agnes sat almost unconscious before hers. 

Her mind was absorbed in the contemplation of 
the step she had taken. It w'as in vain that she re- 
viewed all the arguments which had induced her 
to consent to the interview. In vain she spread out 
the whole tissue of conclusions and deductions 
w'hich had led to it ; what she had thought solid, 
now appeared flimsy ; and not even her innate know- 
ledge that she was instigated by a virtuous mo- 
tive, could reconcile her to the step she had 
taken. 

Perhaps, also, her heart began to tell her too 
loudly, that Leslie was not quite indifferent to it ; 
perhaps she began to find that all the warm feel- 
ings of which she had once been so proud, had only 
slumbered, and had not been extinguished; perhaps 
she began to experience sensations which sent hei 
heart’s blood up into her cheek; but this, instead 
of encouraging and tempting her, alarmed her. 
The chord was again struck, but she w'as deter- 
mined to crush its vibrations, and banish the enter- 
prising hand that had dared to strike it. 

It was in vain that Mrs. Flounce spread out 
the costly dresses of her wardrobe, to tempt 
her choice : and in vain that she reminded 
her, again and again, that the dressing-bell had 
sounded. 

Agnes was too much absorbed in her own 
reflections — too much terrified at her own sen- 
sations — to give any thought to the routine of com- 
mon things. 

She was, therefore, dressed after her maid’s own 
taste; and, as the second bell rang, she moved al-' 
most unconsciously and mechanically, towards the 
drawing-room, still undetermined whether to keep 
or break her appointment. 

What a contrast between the two! The one 
plotting and planning, and thinking upon destruc- 
tion ; the other insensible of danger, yet dreading 
she knew not what. The destroyer attending to all 
the minutix of the toilet; and the intended victim 
insensible, and careless of any thing but that which 
absorbed her mind. 

When she entered the room the party were all 
assembled, and her entrance was the signal for the 
announcement of dinner. 

Leslie was leaning against the side of a window, 
with his eye fixed impatiently on the door. 'Fheir 
eyes met as she entered, but hers were immediately 
withdrawn; and she seized the arm of an old 
peer, who stood immediately near the dooi, 
and selected him as her escort to the dinner- 
table. 

Leslie bit his lip, but offered his arm to Lady 
Mary Trentham. Trevor, as usual, walked off with 
Lady Flora; and the rest of the guests paired otf 
either as they had premeditated, or promiscuously 
according to circumstances. 

During dinner, Leslie, in spite of the light artil- 
lery with which he was attacked by I ady Mary 
Trentham and his opposite neighbors, did not 
fail to fix his eye occasionally on Mrs. Tre- 

(6) 


86 


THE ROUE. 


Vor, who sat, almost silent, at the head of the 
table. 

As he observed her downcast looks and evident 
absorption, he trembled for her determination as to 
her appointment; but as hers was not a mind that 
could lightly promise, he trusted to its performance, 
and betook himself to meet and return the fire of 
his fair adversaries, who were rallying him upon his 
jnsensihility to their attractions, and to the example 
which he held out to other young men who would 
imitate him. 

Trevor flirted openly with Lady Fli^ra, who, by 
her bold manners, and evident pleasure at his at- 
tentions, gave occasion to many significant shrugs 
and uplifted eyes from the silent consumers of the 
delicacies before them. Surely, thought Leslie, she 
cannot be so much above her sex as to view this 
with indifference 7 and he immediately, but artfully, 
tried various ways to attract her attention to the 
behavior of her husband, but without success; or, 
if she did observe it, it was with that high-souled 
indifference that never suggested the thought of re- 
taliation, with which Leslie was in hopes she might 
be inspired. 

Trevor continued to give Lady Flora his undi- 
vided attention, and Agnes was constrained to 
keep up a desultory conversation with the elderly 
peer, who had handed her down, and the new 
member for the county on her left, while Leslie 
was martyrizing under the pretty conceits of his 
fair companion, and watching with scrutinizing 
though furtive glances, the various changes of 
countenance which were exhibited on that face 
which was really the “ tell-tale” of the mind 
within. 

At length Agnes rose, and gloves, fans, and 
vinaigrettes, w'ere collected by the ladies, who 
followed her. 

Leslie caught her eye once in the general move, 
but it spoke nothing by which he could interpret 
her intentions. 

He rushed to the door, and was luckily in time 
to open it for the retreating fair ones, thinking he 
might receive some signal, some slight recognition 
of the engagement; but she passed without giving 
any, and, he closed the door upon the rustling silks 
with an agony of uncertainty and impatience. 

The gentlemen now gave themselves up much 
more freely to the bottle than is generally the 
present usage in London. 

Leslie, wrapt up in himself, did not join in the 
conversation. He was too restless, too impatient, 
loo uncertain of the events of the night. His 
passions were up with expectation ; his heart was 
on fire with the project he meditated, and he had 
the utmost difficulty to control his feelings so that 
they should not betray his anxiety. 




CHAPTER XXXIV 


The place that Leslie had named in his letter 
fcr the interview was a favorite spot with Agnes, 


and one to which he knew she was in the habit of 
resorting on moonlight nights, to seek some relief 
from the heartless set with which her own drawing- 
room w'as so frequently filled, in the contemplation 
of the beautiful scenery which surrouuded it; and 
here he had frequently seen her in the height 
of her feeling give way to paroxysms of sorrow' at 
the disappointment of her hopes. He was aware 
that during the nights when the moon was brightest 
her habit of walking alone had been so constant, 
that her absence from the drawing-room would 
pass unobserved, and he knew that she would 
think this likewise. It was therefore that he named 
this place and hour. 

The spot thus selected by Agnes as the solitary 
temple of her sorrows, had, alas ! been one qjf 
those which had been the scene of her pleasures in 
the early period of her marriage. Its beauties 
had struck her on her first visit to Trevor Hall, 
and it was there that she had then realized many 
of her anticipations of happiness with her husband. 
It was there that he had joined with her in 
her enthusiastic admiration of nature ; had read to 
her, listened to her* guitar, or sat with her in all 
the silence of pleasure, lulled into a forgetfulness 
of every thing but themselves and their present 
happiness, by the surge of the wave, as it dashed 
against the cliff; or by the cascade, as it turnbled 
down the mountain in the ocean. Had Leslie 
been aware of this, he would not perhaps hii^ve 
named such a place as the scene of their inter- 
view. 

The spot itself was far removed from the gene- 
rally, frequented parts of the park, being at the 
back of one of those large plantations w hich had 
growm for ages on the brow of a hill overlooking 
the sea. A small lawn was here overshadow’ed by 
the high trees by which it was surrounded, and the 
care that, by the commands of Agnes, had been be- 
stowed upon it, preserved the grass in all its ver- 
dant freshness, in spite of its proximity to tiie 
ocean, towards which the lawn shelved down gra- 
dually; while to the right and left rose the natural 
ramparts of the sea, from one of which rolled 
the cascade which Leslie had mentioned in his let- 
ter to Villars. 

Several small banks of turf, surrounded by 
flowers, had been created by the command of Ag- 
nes ; and a small Corinthian temple had likewise 
been erected in this little arena of beauties, to which 
there was access only by one or two almost imper- 
ceptible avenues through the ancient oaks and 
elms, which with their dark foliage, formed a fine 
contrast with the bright and smooth lawn beneath 
them. 

This w'as the place selected by Leslie for his in- 
terview with Agnes; and it was here, under the 
bright canopy of heaven, that she, in the con- 
sciousness of her own innocence, had consented to 
see him on before his departure. 

On quitting the dinner-table, Leslie had entered 
the drawing-room, with an anxious and trembling 
step, dreading lest the first object which might 
strike him should be Agnes unprepared for the in- 
terview. An agitated glance around the room con- 
vinced him in a moment that she was not there, and 
gave him additional hope of the performance of 
her original intention. 

He walked in the direction of the place ap- 


rHE ROUfi. 


87 


pointed, and sought for some temporary relief from 
the violence and impatience of his feelings in the 
contemplation of the scene which he hoped might 
witness the accomplishment of his wishes. He 
amused, or rather occupied himself in inspecting 
the environs, to ascertain that there w'as no in- 
truder, and to make himself perfectly acquainted 
with the topography of the spot; and by the time 
he had placed himself on the steps of the temple, 
he felt that he was “ himself again’^ in every thing, 
but the anxiet3/he experienced lest she should not 
keep her appointment. 

It was one of those clear bright nights w'hich 
seldom visit our northern atmosphere; not a cloud 
was to be seen, but the whole sky was studded so 
numerously with stars, that the head became nearly 
dizzy with their contemplation: amidst them the 
bright moon, which had nearly “ filled her circling 
orb,” moved slowly, calmly, and solemnly, throw- 
ing her white radiance in one large undulating 
column upon the sparkling waters of the ocean, 
while its brightness trembled on the foliage of the 
majestic trees that bowed to the whispering of a 
warm autumnal breeze. 

As Leslie looked around he felt that everything 
conspired in his favor; the solemn stillness — the 
bright moonlight — the murmuring of the waters — 
the distant sound of the music from the house, 
which at intervals broke upon the ear, all united, 
gave the scene that voluptuousness of nature which 
art can never imitate. All this had little effect 
upon his own feelings; but he knew' from experi- 
ence the influence it was likely to have on a young 
and romantic mind, and on a heart so unsullied as 
that of Agnes. Leslie was now quite cool, and 
struck his repeater, for his impatience suggested 
that the time appointed must be near at hand. 
“ Seven — eight — one — two — three quarters,” count- 
ed he aloud. “ No, not yet,” said he, and he almost 
doubted the correctness of his watch; but it was 
correct, for no timepiece keeps truer time than a 
lover’s, at least before success has crowned his pur- 
suit; afterwards, Leslie had sornetimes found his 
half an hour too slow. A slight agitation from the 
trees, by the wdnd, made him start in that direction, 
lest any intruder might be near to interrupt them. 
All was, however, again quiet. 

“ No,” said he, in soliloquy ; “ there are no 
eyes but those of the stars to gaze upon a lover’s 
transports, or to witness a lady’s blushes; no- 
thing but the whisperings of the breeze to betray 
them.” 

He struck his repeater again, and the hour 
of appointment sounded; still nothing indicated 
the approach of Agnes. 

“But will she come?” said he again, and a 
sickness came over his heart at the apprehension 
w'hich this question created. “ Will no inter- 
vening scruple, no impertinent conscience, with 
its whispers of conjugal duty, step in and dis- 
appoint me? Yet, no — no,” pursued he, “she 
thinks I come here to take my leave for ever. 
She imagines me struggling between passion and 
duty — she thinks she comes to confirm me in 
a virtuous resolutipn, and will not fail ; the very 
edge of the precipice is decorated with flowers, and 
the gulf below is hid by heartsease.” 

Thus soliloquised Leslie, sotto voce, when he 
evidently heard footsteps fast approaching the spot 


in which the sound came. He rushed in the 
direction — his heart beating with rapture — his soul 
all expectation — when, at the entrance to the 
plantation, he met — not Mrs. Trevor, but to his 
horror, Trevor himself, in a state of intoxication ! 
Leslie, in his impatience, had approached too near 
to him to escape ; indeed, had nearly seized his 
hand ere he had discovered his mistake. 

“ Curse these — winding paths. I’ve missed — 
my way. Eh, Leslie ! why, what brings you 
here, man ?” stammered Trevor. 

This question set Leslie’s fears that his intrusion 
was intended at rest. Curses rose to his lips but 
prudence repressed them. 

“ Oh, nothing — nothing but my love of solitude 
and scenery,” replied he. > 

“ Love of solitude and scenery — no — no,” said 
Trevor. “ I don’t believe that — they are no loves 
of yours. ’Tis some woman — some intrigue now 
I know — some damned intrigue; and you are 
playing me false.” 

“ Playing you false!” exclaimed Leslie, alarmed 
at this speech from his own consciousness of its 
truth. 

“ Yes, Leslie, for not confiding in me. x^re wo 
not brothers in arms ? Come, now, tell me who it 
is : you know me too well to imagine I would 
interrupt or betray any thing of the sort,” hiccuped 
out Trevor. 

“ No — no — not now for heaven’s sake !” ex- 
claimed Leslie, impatient for his departure, and 
fearful that Agnes might hear him, and retreat 
without granting him the desired interview. 

“ Let me see,” said Trevor, with that obsti- 
nacy which sometimes characterises drunkenness, 
“ who have we in the house ? There’s Lady 
Freelove — no-“-no — it isn’t her. There is ” 

“ Nay — nay — ^you shall know all to-morrow — all 
— all — but begone now !” again exclaimed Leslie, 
almost in a passion wdth his impatience. 

“ If she is a married woman,” continued Trevor, 
“ you may tell me safely; and her husband shall 
never be a jot the wiser.” 

“ No — no. In this instance I trust the husband 
never will be a jot the wiser,” said Leslie. “ But be- 
gone, or you’ll ruin all.” 

And if I go, you will ruin ” 

Leslie, at this moment thinking he heard a noise 
among the trees, and that he caught a glimpse of 
female drapery, seized Trevor, and forcibly urged 
him to the other side of the lawn ; during which 
operation the remembrance of his own object in 
leaving the house seemed to recur to Trevor’s 
mind, and he uttered an indistinct inquiry if Leslie 
had seen any thing of Lady Flora ? 

Leslie saw the whole affair in its right light in 
an instant ; and declaring that he had seen Lady 
Flora quit the terrace in the front of the drawing 
room, and direct her steps towards an aviary in 
quite a different part of the park, he contrived, to 
his great joy, to get rid of the unwelcome intruder. 
Still, however, there was no appearance of Agnes ; 
and he began to fear that she had indeed come 
during the unexpected visit of her husband, and had 
been frightened from her purpose. 

Agnes, in the meantime, sat anxiously in her 
dressing room, still irresolute whether she should 
keep or break the appointment. Her consciousness 
of the rectitude of her intentions could not hide 


88 


THE R0U£. 


from her a deep sense of the impropriety and dan- 
ger of the step she was about to take. Yet she 
saw no other method by which she could urge the 
necessity of Leslie’s departure, and secure his obe- 
dience to her wishes, unless she made a confident 
of her husband, and accomplished them through 
him. This was a scheme, however, too pregnant 
with danger for her to think of ; and yet it was the 
only one she ought to have pursued. No consider- 
ation for a husband’s safety should, in a wife, induce 
the concealment of any thing prejudicial to his 
honor. 

As Leslie watched the progress of the clock, im- 
patient at the slow progress of time, so Agnes 
^watched the pendule on her chimney piece with 
precisely the contrary feeling. She wished for the 
power of arresting its progress ; she wished that the 
appointed hour which called for her decision might 
never come. As minutes had appeared hours to 
Leslie, so did the intervals between the quarters of 
each, by her time-piece, appear but as moments to 
Agnes. As the time approached, her agitation 
increased ; and as she counted it at last striking 
the hour as though it had been her knell, every stroke 
of the clock went to her heart, and she almost 
gasped for breath. For a moment she determined 
to break her appointment; and threw herself on 
the sofa in a vain attempt to calm her agita- 
tion. 

As minute after minute rolled on, however, she 
again began to hesitate. Imagination pictured the 
agony of Leslie ; she bethought her how involun- 
tary had been his crime, and that it was no fault 
of his that it had come to her knowledge. His for- 
bearance, his respect, his prudence, through the 
long series of months that this passion had been 
preying upon his heart — for the discovery had been 
mads in such a way that could leave do doubt upon 
her mind as to the strength and sincerity and du- 
ration of his affection — gave her confidence in his 
honor. The idea that her influence might confirm 
him in the resolution to leave her, not unmixed 
perhaps, that an interview might in some measure 
soothe his agony, without compromising herself, all 
rushed upon her thoughts at once, and overturned 
the resolution she had almost taken not to attend 
her appointment. It was now nearly a quarter 
past nine. She seized a new Cashmere, that had 
arrived from town that very morning, and w'hich 
had been ostentatiously displayed by Flounce over 
the cheval glass — again hesitated — then hastily 
wrapping it around her as though fearful of her own 
resolution, she hurried through, the casement that 
opened upon the terrace, and hastened to the place 
of rendezvous. 

' The beauty of the night — the brightness of the 
moon — the myriads of stars were unheeded by her. 
Every thing was calm without, every thing tur- 
bulent within. Her heart palpitated, so that it al- 
most impeded her progress. All her senses seemed 
to have derived an additional degree of acuteness. 
The falling of a leaf, as she passed through the 
trees, appeared to her imagination almost like a 
peal of thunder. She felt that if she suffered her- 
self to think, she should even now turn back — and 
she did not think. 

The impatient Leslie was pacing the lawn with 
rapid strikes, cursing Trevor for his disappointment, 
and almost ready in his passion to dash his head 


against the trees ; for he had given up all hope# 
of her coming. When he heard her approach, he 
rushed to the entrance from the plantation, and 
was doomed this time not to be disappointed. 

Breathless from his late agitation, and from the 
quick transition of his feelings, it was some mo- 
ments before he could utter a word. Agnes her- 
self trembled too much to break a silence, w^hich 
was only interrupted by the beating of their 
hearts. 

At their first encounter, Leslie had seized her 
hand; and she had, almost unconsciously, permit- 
ted him to retain it. At length, in that whisper 
which is so indicative of high-wrought passion, he 
exclaimed — “ My sweet friend, this is indeed kind ! 
How shall I be grateful enough for this goodness — 
how shall I repay your confidence!” 

“ O ! Sir Robert Leslie,” Agnes replied, with 
trembling, “ Nay — nay — release my hand.” 

“ How can I, W'hen it trembles so,” said Leslie. 
“ Repose with confidence on my arm — tranquillize 
your spirits” 

“ Presently — presently,” replied Agnes. “ Par- 
don this agitation. Do not think ill of me. Sir 
Robert, for thus complying with your request ” 

“Can my sweet friend — can Mrs. Trevor think 
me so ungrateful,” interrupted Leslie*. “ Rather 
let me thank you on my knees for your conde- 
scension.” 

“ Oh ! no — no — no,” exclaimed Agnes, as with 
both hands she prevented his assuming the attitude 
his words threatened. “ Let me collect my scat- 
tered senses. You must leave me.” 

“ Leave you !” 

“Yes!” pursued Agnes. “Accident has be- 
trayed that which I ought never to have known ; 
but knowing it — it would be a crime to encourage 
your presence. ^ am here merely to claim your 
promise of quitting me for ever.” 

“ Quit you !” exclaimed Leslie. “ Well — I must 
bow to your commands ; but tell me — oh ! tell me 
where is the necessity for an exertion that must 
destroy me. My feelings are unsuspected by the 
whole world. You are uninfluenced by them, ex- 
cept in the kindness of your pity. Can you not 
depend on a discretion which has preserved the 
secret even from you for months ! Can you doubt 
the prudence which has hitherto kept down feel- 
ings, the fervor of which has almost broke my 
heart '!” 

“ Oh ! — no — no — no,” replied Agnes, with in- 
creasing agitation. “But my honor — my peace of 
miiid — require it.” 

“ Nay — nay ; but none — none — will know it,” 
said Leslie. 

“ Oh ! — yes — yes, there will be one ; and my own 
consciousness would imagine the truth in every eye 
that looked upon me — would interpret every obser- 
vation into a sneer, and transform the smiles of 
friendship into those of pity or of scorn — ” and her 
voice faltered still more. 

“ Nay — nay — my sweet friend :” and Leslie, who 
had not relinquished her hand, drew her closer to 
him ; “this is indeed too fastidious; this is unlike 
yourself, to sacrifice so much to a foolish and heart- 
less world. Think upon all I have suffered — all 
that I must suffer. Recollect that accident alone 
betrayed the knowledge of my passion !” 

“ Hold Sir Robert Leslie !” and Agnes spoke with 


THE ROUE. 


89 


more energy than she had yet exerted ; “ it is true, 
I do owe this unhappy knowledge to accident. That 
was neither your blame nor mine ; but for you to 
speak it is insult — for me to listen to it is crime.” 

“ Nay — nay and Leslie’s passion got the belter 
of his sang-froid : “ Can that be crime which is 
the impulse of the heart ? Can that be deemed in- 
sult which is the emanation of the purest passion, 
and which has been engendered hy the contempla- 
tion of goodness and loveliness pining under the un- 
deserved neglect. ” 

“ Sir Robert Leslie, I will not hear you !” ex- 
claimed Agnes. 

“Nay,” pursued Leslie, “but your husband 


“ Is your friend, and trusts you,” interrupted Ag- 
nes. “I came. Sir Robert Leslie, relying on your 
letter; to confirm you in a virtuous resolution; keep 
it. Sir, for your own sake — for mine’' — and her 
voice again became tremulous. Her energy was 
gone, and Leslie felt it. 

“But Agnes” and he would have proceeded, 

but she dfew herself up in a moment, and with dig- 
nity interrupted him, by saying, proudly, “ Mistress 
Trevor, sir, that is my name, and it shall never be 
disgraced by me. Leave me — permit me to depart : 
I have done wrong — I feel it ; but leave me — leave 
me, sir, to the bitterness of my repentance and my 
tears ;” and Agnes wept. 

Although she had begun this last sentence with 
firmness, her voice sunk into womanly tenderness 
at the conclusion ; and as she uttered the word 
“ tears,” Leslie felt the burning drops of them on 
his hand. He felt also the advantage he had gain- 
ed : he could not doubt but that there were feelings 
for him struggling in her heart ; and calculating 
upon what he had met with in other women, he 
determined to persevere. 

“ Tears — tears — my sweet friend : what occasion 
is there for tears,” exclaimed he, “ where all may 
be smiles : the involuntary knowledge of my love is 
no crime in you : my attention to others will blind 
the world ” 

“ And what will blind my own conscience 1” 
exclaimed she, with agony. “ Go, sir ; and if to 
have added another pang to an already suffering 
heart can be a triumph, enjoy it — it is yours.” 

“ Nay, nay and he drew her more closely to 
him. 

“ Unhand me, I insist — I implore ” 

At this moment, the tread of heavy footsteps ap- 
proaching alarmed them both. Agnes, in an agony 
of terror, heard her husband’s voice, and would have 
fled, but that her feet seemed to refuse their office ; 
she could only reach the steps of the temple, on 
which she sank, exhausted and fainting, while 
Leslie still preserved sufficient presence of mind 
to intercept 'Prevor at the entrance of the lawn. 

He had sought in vain for Lady Flora — had re- 
turned to the dinner table, swallowed three or four 
more bumpers ; and then, not finding her in the 
drawing room, and still imagining that she was 
expecting him, had again unconsciously wandered 
towards the lawn where he had left Leslie. 

Leslie’s passions were at their height ; the scald- 
ing tear upon his hand had acted like lightning ; 
the dominion of his lust was upon him ; he had 
touched Agnes ; touched her while his heart and 
mind were bent on her possession ; and the colli- 


sion had set his senses in a blaze. He seized Tre- 
vor’s arm with an energy that almost startled him 
out of his intoxication. He felt that he could have 
dashed him from the precipice into the ocean for 
this interruption, and would have done it but that, 
amidst all the frenzy of his passion, he recollected 
that by making her a widow, he should cut off 
every hope of possessing Agnes, excepting as a 
wife. 

It was the peculiar characteristic of Leslie’s mind, 
that in the very height and tide of his feelings, his 
coolness and calculation seldom forsook him. 

To Leslie’s fierce question of what brought him 
there again, Trevor stammered some excuse about 
Lady Flora, which Leslie was not sorry that Agnes 
should hear. 

“ My dear Leslie,” said he, “ I beg your pardon ^ 
I did not mean to intrude ; but somehow or other — 
curse me if I can find Lady Flora^ — I mean, I can’t 
find my way ; and then, for the first time seeing 
Agnes, “Eh! oh, she is come; Leslie, you are a 
lucky rogue. I beg your pardon;” and then ap- 
proaching Agnes, who had just sense enough to 
wrap herself up closer in her shawl, he continued, 
with a bow that almost sent him prostrate, “ Madam, 
I beg ten thousand pardons.” 

“ ’Sdeath, man !” said Leslie ; “away with you ; 
as a man of honor, as a gentleman, away with you, 
instantly, and be contented with the mischief you 
have done.” 

“ But I say, Leslie,” pertinaciously continued 
Trevor, the lady’s ill ; perhaps I can be of service ;” 
and he again turned towards Agnes, with “ I beg 
ten thousand pardons,” but was whirled round by 
Leslie. “ You want nerve, Leslie, you do indeed ; 
let me see the lady to the house. Her cha — a — 
racter will be quite — qui — ite sa — afe with me. I’ll 
keep the secret as religiously as though it were my 
own.” 

“ Away ! away ! Trevor,” said Leslie, quite con- 
quered by his feelings, in a voice of suppressed pas- 
sion, “unless you wish to quarrel with me ; and by 
G — , that must and shall be the case, if you stop 
another instant !” 

“ Fm off, my dear fellow — don’t be in a passion — 
I am off,” said Trevor, and he reeled towards the 
plantation, and went in the direction of the house, 
muttering to himself, unheard by Leslie, “ Hem — 
doens’t want me to know who she is ; but I marked 
the Cashmere shawl — white and silver — thanks to 
the moon— and shall soon find out the wearer.” 

The moment Trevor was gone Leslie rushed 
towards Agnes. But she was already upon her 
feet, supporting herself on one of the pedestals 
of the temple, before he could reach her. One 
hand rested on the balustrade, while the other was 
lifted up to heaven. Her countenance was up- 
turned in the same direction. Every thing was 
motionless about her except her heart and lips; 
the one beat tumultuously, the other moved in 
some inaudible prayer. As the white light of the 
moon fell only on the outline of her figure, making 
her pale face paler, and glittering on the drapery 
of her shawl, she appeared more like a statue 
of the purest alabaster than a human creature. 

Leslie was struck with her unearthly appear- 
ance, and paused as he came near her. She was, 
however, sensible of his approach, and receding 
from him, forbade him again to tou«h her, ei* 


90 


THE ROU fi. 


claiming, “ Oh ! why, why did I consent to come ? 
I deserve it all — all that can come upon me for this 
guilty imprudence ; and I pray Heaven to enable 
me to endure my punishment with fortitude.’^ 

“Nay, nay,” replied Leslie; “all is safe — all 
aro in ignorance.” 

“ Except my own heart and conscience,” said 
Agnes, solemnly; “they are not ignorant; and 
Heaven grant me patience to endure the agony 
of the one and the bitter reproaches of the other !” 
and she moved away. 

“But hear me — hear me;” and Leslie would 
have advanced towards her. 

“ Nay, Sir Robert Leslie, follow me not; I 
insist, I command that you approach not one step 
nearer, and that you permit my passage to the 
house I ought never to have quitted:” and Agnes 
spoke with a firmness that she had not hitherto 
exhibited during the interview. “ I have not the 
pow’^er to forbid you my husband’s house, because 
it would betray your secret, but, Sir Robert, if 
that manly generosity for which I have hitherto 
given you credit, really exists in your heart, you 
will never increase the bitterness of my repentance 
by the continuance of your presence.” 

The tone of voice, and the whole manner of 
Agnes, was now so collected and so firm, that 
Leslie saw all hope of again rousing a feeling 
in his favor was at an end, and his heart bitterly 
cursed Trevor. All he could now do was to 
secure his forgiveness. 

“ Any thing, every thing you require shall 
be done,” said he, “ only let me so manage it 
that I may run no risk of compromising your 
honor.” 

“ Nay, Sir, never mind me, my honor can 
defend itself,” said Agnes. 

“ God forbid that I should doubt it,” replied 
he. 

“ Permit my free passage. Sir Robert Leslie,” 
again demanded Agnes, for he stood directly across 
the path which led to the house. 

“ Let me but convince you that the results 
of this interview were not premeditated — that if 
I have erred, it has been only through the uncon- 
trollable impulse of the moment, and not in the 
premeditated intention. — Breathe but my forgive- 
ness before you go, that my heart may not be left 
to the agony of bearing your displeasure, and 
I will be any thing and every thing you wish 
to make me.” As Leslie said this he made way 
for her to pass. Agnes was nearly exhausted 
by the energy with which she had uttered the few 
last sentences. 

“ Sir Robert Leslie,” said she, “ I do forgive 
you — would to God I could forgive myself.” 

This was uttered in a voice so tremulous that it 
again encouraged his hopes ; he advanced towards 
her, but she was already gone; and he only caught 
a glimpse of her white drapery, as with her little 
remaining strength she threaded the dark labyrinth 
of the trees in her flight towards the house. 

Leslie knew that it was in vain to follow her, 
and he rushed down to the sea, there venting his 
hot end ungratified passion in curses both loud and 
deep against Trevor, himself, Agnes, and the whole 
world. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 


Agxes stopped not till she arrived in her dress- 
ing-room. She entered, as she hod quitted it, 
through the French casement of her boudoir^ which 
opened on to the terrace, and, fortunately, unper- 
ceived. The moment she found herself in safety, 
she hastily turned the key in the lock of the door, 
and throwing off her shawl, sunk on her knees by 
the side of the sofa in an agony of tears. For seve- 
ral minutes she was overcome almost to fainting, 
but in some degree relieved of the full measure of 
her feeling by her tears ; she buried her face in the 
cushions, as though she was ashamed that it would 
see the light. 

For some time she continued to sob in an a^ony 
of grief. Her heart seemed ready to break with its 
palpitation. She lifted up her streaming eyes to 
heaven, and attempted to pray. But the attempt 
died away in undistinguishable sounds. She felt 
that she had participated in Leslie’s sin — that her 
own heart was not entirely innocent — that her own 
feelings had not been entirely untouched — the fire 
of unholy love had been kindled in her veins, and 
however it might be concealed from others, to her 
own heart she could not but acknowledge the secret 
guilt. True, she had triumphed over the moment- 
ary feeling — but it had been there, and it had left 
its traces. It w'as not extinguished — and it might 
rise again. Even now her soul was in tumults, and 
she could not — she dared not pray; she could not — 
she dared not think; — all she could do was to weep 
— and sigh — and accuse herself of her involuntary 
crime. It was in vain her husband’s glaring ne- 
glect and open infidelities arose in her mind ; she 
considered them as no apology. Nothing could 
allay the pangs of bitter repentance that shot 
through her heart as she recollected the feelings by 
which she had been agitated during the last hour. 
She was compelled with- agony to acknowledge, 
that, unknown to herself, she had been harboring a 
guilty passion under the semblance of friendship. 
She could not deny to herself that she loved 
Leslie : the truth burst upon her with all the horror 
connected with such a feeling in a virtuous mind, 
and she again gave herself up to the agony which 
this thought created. 

Suddenly she was disturbed by a knocking at 
the door of her boudoir^ and with breathless anxiety 
she heard her husband’s voice demanding admit- 
tance. Surprised at so unusual a circumstance, 
and conscience stricken, she remained a few se- 
conds motionless — uncertain how to act. Terror 
dried her tears. Could he have knowm her't 
V^as he come to reproach her 1 were questions na- 
turally suggested to her mind. How to act ! what 
to say or do ! she had no time for reflection. A. 
second summons louder than the first, forced her 
from her dressing-room to the door, and she almost 
determined on her knees to confess all, and to en- 
treat forgiveness; so entirely at this moment had 
she forgotten all her husband’s wrongs towards her, 
so completely occupied was she with her ideas of 
her own guilty feelings, and with her repenta»ce 


/ 


THE ROUE. 91 


The sight of Trevor, still under the influence of 
wine, and laughing, soon set her mind at rest with 
regard to any discovery he might have made. 

“ Why, Agnes, you are quite bavricadoed,’’ said 
he, “ and as difficult of access as an eastern 
queen.” 

“ I am ill — out of spirits — unfit for society — 
and — I thought a few hours’ quiet might restore 
me,” stammered Agnes, again betrayed into a half 
falsehood. 

You are right, my love,” replied Trevor, 
“ they do make a confounded noise with their 
music below ; those eternal Miss Digginses are 
come, and have done nothing but play duets with 
each other, loud enough to stun anybody ; and 
that sentimental Miss Tinkler, with her Italian 
master Da Capo and their guitars, really wear 
one’s nerves threadbare. I wish to God their 
fathers, and uncles, and cousins, had been free- 
holders in any other county than this.” 

Agnes silently assented ; greatly relieved from 
her fears, but still utterly at a loss to know the 
meaning of such an unusual visit, and still afraid to 
inquire. 

Trevor at length, seeming to recollect something 
which his description of the people in the drawing- 
room had for a moment put out of his head, burst 
out into a violent fit of laughter. 

“ Oh, Agnes ! such a discovery !” said he, “ such 
a divscovery about our friend Leslie !” 

Agnes trembled, turned paler than before, and 
could scarcely prevent herself from falling; the 
influence of the wine was, however, still too 
potent to permit Trevor to observe her agita- 
tion. 

“ A discovery !” she faintly articulated. 

“ Yes — a discovery ! I know you always sup- 
posed Leslie attached to somebody ; and that you 
were curious to know the object,” said Trevor, 
“ and I have found it out.” 

Agnes felt nearly ready to faint. Had he really 
discovered her I She knew that she could resolve 
this question in a moment by a single glance, but 
her consciousness took from her the power to look 
in bis face. 

“Ha! ha! ha! Poor Leslie! He certainly is 
in for it — as we say on the turf; madly — despe- 
rately in love — ha ! ha ! ha ! It is really quite 
delightful to see the knowing • ones sometimes 
taken in themselves. I have heard him swear 
a hundred times that none of your sex could make 
him feel. But by his behaviour to-night, I appre- 
hend he has found the contrary — ha ! ha ! ha !” 

Agnes was by this time at ease with regard 
to his knowledge of her; but the subject filled her 
with terror and disgust, and she roused her energies 
to try to persuade Trevor again to leave her to 
herself. 

“ But, Mr. Trevor — Charles — whal is this to 
me I” asked Agnes. 

“ Oh ! I have often observed your curiosity on 
the subject,” said Txevor, “ and I now come to 
give you the opportunity of gratifying it. I owe 
you something, my love, for the present of your 
portrait.” Agnes shuddered, and again felt faint. 

“ Well — well, but not now, some other time — 
my head — ” she had almost said her heart — • 
“ actifcs, and I am unfit for any thing but my 
pillow. Pray — pray, leave me; and you, too, 


Mr. Trevor, I am sure you would be the better for 
a little repose.” 

“ Why, to be sure,” said he, “these confounded 
freeholders do make one drink ; and my head cer- 
tainly does not, to my own feelings, appear quite 
stationary : so answer me only one question, and I 
will leave you — Who is there among our guests 
that has a white Cashmere shawl, worked with a 
silver border 1 

The question was so sudden, so unexpected, that 
Agnes quite started ; and merely repeating his 
words — “ a white Cashmere, with a silver border ?” 
could say no more. Her eye almost unconsciously 
wandered round the room with a glance of terror, 
lest the tell-tale garment might be visible; but the 
equivocation which would have rendered her know- 
ledge doubtful, or the falsehood that would have 
denied it, died on her lips. 

“Yes,” repeated Trevor, “a white shawl; a 
Cashmere, I should think, with a deep silver bor- 
der ; I should know it anywhere.” 

Agnes recollected with terror the conspicuous 
appearance of the shawl, and inwardly condemned 
it to destruction. At this moment, what was her 
horror at seeing Flounce enter from the dressing 
room, with which one of the servants’ stair-caises 
communicated by another door, carrying the Cash- 
mere in her hand, which she was in the act of 
bringing to her mistress, to exculpate herself from 
the blame of some dirt and stains with which it was 
sullied, and to wonder how they could come there ; 
but struck with the unusual circumstance of her 
master being in the lady’s boudoir^ she was hastily 
retreating, when Trevor catching a glimpse of the 
shawl, rushed across the room, and stopped her, 
exclaimed, “ By my soul, the identical shawl ! 
Flounce — Agnes — whose shawl is this I” demand- 
ed he, in a half passionate tone — the idea which 
passed through his mind having sobered him in a mo- 
ment — “ answer me instantly ; for I am certain it is 
the very same I was inquiring for, and that I saw 
this evening worn by a person who was with Leslie.” 

Worlds could not have drawn a syllable either 
of truth or equivocation — of confession or extenua- 
tion — from the lips of the almost insensible Agnes. 
But Flounce, though only let enough into Leslie's 
secret by La Tour to make her suspect much more 
than actually existed, with the true tact of a wait- 
ing-maid, saw how matters stood in an instant; and 
without the slightest hesitation, fell upon her knees 
to her mistress, and entreated her forgiveness. 

Agnes knew not her meaning ; yet she me- 
chanically asked, “For what] What have you 
done]” 

“ Oh, ma’am !” replied Flounce, pretending to 
weep, “ I am sure I meant no harm, and intended 
to take the utmost care ; but I thought the new 
shawl so very beau — beautiful, that I took it down 
to the steward’s room to show the other ladies’- 
maids ; and — and — ” 

“Well; can’t the girl speak without all this 
fuss]” exclaimed Trevor, “and can’t you stand 
upright ]” 

“ Oh dear, yes — I will, sir,” answered Flounce, 
“but you put me out.” She arose ; the little inter- 
ruption, however, instead of “ putting her (mt,” had 
given her time to invent something that m%ht per- 
chance help her mistress out of the dilemma in 
which she imagined her to be placed. 


92 


THE R0U£. 


“ And so, ma’am/’ continued she, “ a walk being 
proposed, because it was so beautifully moonlight, 
silly I must needs put on the beautifully new Cash- 
mere, Oh ! I know it was very wrong, sir,” 

“ Go on,” said T revor. 

‘‘ So, in the great grove, sir, missing my com- 
panions, sir,” pursued she, “ and wandering about 
to find my way, who should pop upon me, but — 
but — Sir Robert Leslie, w'ho I believe took me for 
somebody else ; for — lady — somebody — ’’she added 
this, lest the other very indefinite description might 
be misconstructed as applying to her mistress ; 
“ and in escaping from him, the shawl got dirtied, 
and I am afraid — afraid spoiled.” In this she 
stumbled on the truth. 

This to Agnes, who knew the whole to be such 
a complete fabrication, seemed to be so improbable 
a tale, that she could not for a moment imagine 
that it would be believed by Trevor; indeed, she 
scarcely wished that it should ; and during the time 
Flounce had been telling it, she had been sum- 
moning up the whole remaining strength of 
her mind to meet the consequences of the dis- 
covery. 

The sudden and impromptu manner, however, in 
which the tale had been invented and told by 
Flounce ; the circumstance of her having entered 
the boudoir with the shawl hanging on her arm, 
and evidently looking at the stairs with something 
like fright and annoyance, conspired, with the 
utter improbability of its being Agnes herself that 
he had seen, to convince Trevor of its truth. 

“ Then it was you after all, that — was with Sir 
Robert Leslie?” said he. 

“ Yes, sir,” sahi Flounce. 

“ And did you see nobody else 1” 

There were one or two others, sir,” replied 
Flounce, “ but I was afraid to look up; I believe 
they were tipsey, sir.” This reply silenced his ques- 
tions on this point; he continued his catechism, by 
asking who was her first companion. 

Here Flounce hesitated; she knew that her 
falsehood might be betrayed, if she mentioned any 
of the female attendants; not one of whom could 
she trust with this deception of her master without, 
in some measure, implicating her mistress. 

Trevor repeated this question — Flounce hung 
iown her head, attempted, or pretended to blush, 
and stammered out in a hesitating voice, “ Mr. La 
Tour, sir.” 

“La Tour! hum — like master like man.” This 
he half muttered to himself; then feeling that the 
effects of his wine must have been perceptible in 
his conduct, he apologised to Agnes; conjured her 
not to mind the people below, but retire to bed ; 
and finishing, by saying, that “it would be a good 
laugh agaiust Leslie;” and casting a sly look at 
Flounce, he withdrew. 

The moment he was gone, Agnes, without no- 
ticing Flounce, who was waiting all expectation for 
a signal of approbation, rushed into the dressing- 
room, and locking the door upon Flounce, who had 
attempted to follow her, threw herself upon the 
bed in a state of mind more easily to be conceived 
than described. 

Mrs. Flounce, proud of her own exploits, tossed 
up he§ head at being shut out, and exclaiming, 
“ Humph ! this comes now of not trusting me,” 
went ia search of La Tour, to tell him of what 


had happened, that he might put his master on his 
guard, as to what he should say to Trevor; and 
also with a womanish curiosity, to sift out from him 
the circumstances that had led to the necessity of 
her interference. 

Flounce really loved her mistress; and twelve 
months previous to this period, would as soon have 
thought of self destruction as of entering into any 
plot which would have the least chance of com- 
promising her. The unbounded influence, how- 
ever, which La Tour soon acquired over her, united 
with her indignation at the unworthy treatment 
which Agnes received at the hands of Trevor, of 
the whole of whose intrigues and infidelities 
Flounce had been apprised by La Tour ; together 
with that gradual demoralization of mind and heart 
which inevitably succeeds a wilful and unrepeiited 
lapse from chastity in a woman, had gradually un- 
dermined all her early, though never deeply im- 
planted, principles of virtue. Knowing Leslie’s 
violent passion for her mistress, she thought a re- 
turn on her part would be a just revenge on Tre- 
vor for his conduct. 

La 7’our had not studied in Leslie’s school for 
nothing. Like him, he was a complete master of 
his art; and his seduction of Flounce, both mind 
and person, had been complete. Devotedly at- 
tached to him, and dreading nothing so much as a 
separation, it was little to be wondered at, that a 
weak mind should lend itself to any plan that might 
tend to promote her own wishes, and perhaps con- 
duce to restore the happiness of her mistress. La 
Tour had given the history of the lives of many 
couples on the continent, who lived in those un- 
prejudiced countries, surrounded by every luxury, 
in the very first circles of society, although united 
by no stronger bonds than those of love. Of one 
or two of these parties Flounce had had a stew- 
ard’s room knowledge when they were in England, 
before the circumstances occurred that had ren- 
dered their living abroad necessary ; and conse- 
quently the account of their pleasures and happi- 
ness, and position bien respectable dans la societe,’’* 
made a great impression on her mind. 

She was not, however, brought to that state 
which would have wished or promoted the elope- 
ment of Agnes from her husband, however indig- 
nant she felt at his treatment of her. But, as La 
Tour said to his master, while he regaled himself 
wdth a pinch of snuff, and indulged in one of those 
usual shrugs of his shoulders, which acted like a 
note of admiration to his sentence, ra viendra avtc 
le temps, 

Agnes passed her night in tears of repentance, 
and in vain attempts at prayer. She saw the 
abysm into which one lapse from sincerity and 
truth had plunged her, and saw no means of re- 
ceding. Her only hope was that Leslie, knowing 
her wishes, would accelerate his departure from 
the hall, which, since her discovery of the strength 
of her feelings towards him, became more necessary 
to her than ever. 

The next morning brought Flounce to her room. 
It was impossible to pass over the scene of the 
previous evening without some observation ; yet 
any explanation wdth a servant was so humiliating, 
that she knew not how to enter upon it. Any 
thing else than the truth never passed the lips of 
Agnes even to a servant ; and during all the late 


THE ROUE. 


93 


circumstances connected with her portrait, or with 
her interview with Leslie, had she spoken at all, 
the truth would have been told, whatever might 
have been the consequences ; but, unfortunately 
for her, she had allowed herself a tacit concurrence 
in the falsehood, and trusted that *.he e\ils she hoped 
to avert by it was a sufficient apology. 

Agnes now carefully avoided beirjg alone with 
Leslie: her morning rides were always in society, 
aud her evening strolls were solitary. She contrived 
on all occasions to be so surrounded in the draw- 
ing-room, that there was no opportunity for the 
slightest confidential communication, had Leslie 
appeared to seek it. This however he did not, but 
rather seemed on all occasions to respect the 
wishes of Agnes, though evidently with such a de- 
gree of self-denial and of pain, that gained him 
atlditional credit for his delicacy and his forbearance. 

Day passed after day, and days increased to 
weeks, without the appearance of the expected 
guests. Agnes was extremely anxious and uneasy. 
At length, however, feeling that her danger was 
daily and hourly increasing while in the perpetual 
society of Leslie, she suddenly determined, at all 
events, to break up the party and return to town; 
where at any rate she should not be under the same 
roof with him. This determination was no sooner 
made than executed. Trevor complied, because 
Lady Flora had gone to London to meet her sick 
husband, and the guests were dismissed with that 
ease and freedom which modern good society allows, 
and Trevor Hall was again left to its uninterrupted 
soHtude. 


.9, 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


* * * * As Leslie had said, the 

dice were not always against Trevor, and thus 
his ruin, by fair means, seemed too long a process. 
He contrived therefore to introduce him to a set of 
desperadoes, in wffiose society the play was deeper, 
and the excitement consequently stronger. These 
were a set of men of ruined fortunes, who had 
once been gentlemen — who still pretended to be the 
same — and who bullied themselves into a certain 
grade of society, where, though their character was 
doubtful, they were tolerated, because there were 
none who thought it worth while to put themselves 
upon a par with them to dispute it, or to risk the 
disgrace of being shot by theiU. 

Leslie’s love was now become madness. It was the 
master-passion of his soul. He had restrained it till 
he had nearly lost all power over his actions. His 
observation of Agnes had led him to believe that 
nothing but opportunity was wanting to the frui- 
tion of his wishes ; he believed this to be as neces- 
sary to her happiness as his own. He knew that 
this opportunity would never be afl’orded by her, and 
lie determined coide qui coute to make it for him- 
self, and to succeed or perish in the attempt. 

By this time Flounce was ready to aid him in any 
plan that could be devised. 


Leslie’s prolific brain was not long in determin- 
ing on what that plan should be ; all he wanted 
was a private interview with Agnes, wititout fear 
of interruption; and the rest he left to the influ 
ence of her passions, and to his own address. But 
he never permitted Flounce to know how des- 
perate and how determined was his resolution to 
succeed. 

As Agnes generally returned from her parties 
early, it was agreed that Flounce should conceal 
Leslie in her dressing-room ; and though Trevor 
seldom pa.ssed a night at homo, it was determined 
that Leslie should not leave him till he was so 
deeply engaged in Burgundy and hazard, as to 
preclude the probability of his return ; while a 
hint to some of his companions, he well knew, 
might prevent it altogether for the night. 

The whole of Trevor’s establishment, with th-e 
exception of his own valet, and his wife’s maid, 
were domesticated at such a distance from the 
apartments occupied by themselves, that there was 
little fear of interruption from them; but to make 
this still surer, a night was chosen on which all the 
male part of the establishment had been permitted 
by the kindness of their mistress to attend a party 
which La Tour was to give in the steward’s-room 
at his master’s house in Audley Square. 

These arrangements once made, Leslie’s pain 
was in some degree allayed, and he forced himself 
to wait the appointed evening with some degree of 
patience. 

LESLIE TO VILLARS. 

Fred, where do you think I write this 
Where do you suppose my trembling hand traces 
these sentiments of a still more trembling heart 1 
But you will never guess. Be silent as a grave ; 
secret as oblivion, Fred, and I’ll tell you — in her 
dressing-room — in the dressing-room of Agnes. Do 
not start, and never breathe a word of it even to the 
winds ; no not though you went up in a balloon to 
do it. Yes, Fred, in her own room, and with her 
own writing materials do I now address you. Let 
that account for the elfeminacy of my paper ; for the 
agitation of my scrawl ; and for the incoherency of 
my letter. 

What brought me here, say you? Gold, omni- 
potent gold, and woman’s treachery ! And yet, 
Fred, can that be called treachery which would pro- 
cure the happiness of those it betrays ? surely not ! 
And that this maid of hers believes this to be the 
case, by making her mistress mine, I have not the 
slightest doubt. 

Yes, Fred, a womRn has brought me here; La 
Tour gives a/efe at my house, so that the principal 
servants are out of the way ; the rest never ap- 
proach this part of the house. Trevor I have deep- 
ly engaged in play with four desperadoes, who have 
often been of use to me, Fred, in matters of this 
sort: before I quitted him, I saw enough Burgundy 
into his brain, and placed enough gold at his com- 
mand, to insure his remaining there till morning, 
playing and drinking deeply; and my plans are so 
well laid, that should any thing happen to make 
ffim leave his party sooner, I shall receive instant 
intelligence by a signal from without. A carriage 
and four stands at the corner of Stanhope Street ; 
and relays of my own horses, with confidential 


94 


THE ROUE. 


drivers are at every stage between this and Dover ; 
ready, if she accompanies me, which I hope, or in 
c>ise I am obliged to u«e them by myself. You 
will guess why ; I ma j he put to this alterna- 
tive. 

Such, Fred, are my arrangements. I tell them 
to you now, for the increasing fever in my veins 
will scarcely leave me the power to do so presently. 
Are they not made with a master-hand 1 And here 
I am, determined, whatever the consequences may 
be, to take advantage of them : my impatience has 
driven me here a full hour before my time ; and if I 
did not take these means of allaying it, I really 
think I should expire before the arrival of Agnes. 

Ha ! the time is come. I think — yes, I do hear 
footsteps. — Be still, my heart. Breath, do not quite 
desert me. It is Good bye Fred. 


Leslie’s senses had not deceived him. It was 
Agnes; and Leslie had just time to arrange his con- 
cealment behind the curtain before she entered the 
room, accompanied by Flounce, whose furtive 
glance and evident consciousness would have cre- 
ated suspicion in the mind of any one less absorbed 
than Agnes appeared to be. 

Agnes dismissed her maid almost instantly, and, 
throwing herself on the couch, seemed to resign 
herself to reflection. 

The couch was so placed that Leslie could not 
see her face. At first, every thing was silent ; she 
seemed settling herself to repose ; but one gentle 
sigh, succeeded by another, and that followed by 
tears, soon convinced him to the contrary, A series 
of broken sobs now issued from her bosom, and 
she was evidently giving way to some long con- 
trolled feeling that had at length overpowered 
her. In the midst of this, he heard his own name 
mingled with that of Trevor ; and his heart leaped 
into his throat as he resisted the impulse this gave 
him to rush forward and throw himself at her 
feet. 

Her agitation a little calmed, she slowly divested 
herself of her ornaments, but with the air of one 
who scarcely knew what she did. Then suddenly 
clasping her hands, and lifting them to heaven, she 
exclaimed, “ Oh, what a guilty creature I am !” 
and again threw herself on the sofa in an agony of 
grief. 

As this .subsided, her eyes happened to glance 
upon the mirror — they became rivetted ; her tears 
seemed to be suddenly dried up by a burning which 
suffused her cheek. She saw the curtain move — 
she gasped for breath — she started from the sofa, 
and beheld Leslie at her feet. 

Unable longer to control himself, and rendered 
impatient beyond endurance by the delay of Agnes 
in undressing, he had left his concealment before 
he had at first intended, relying on the evidence he 
had thus orally had of her feelings with regard to 
him, and threw himself speechless and almost breath- 
less on his knees before her. 

^.gnes was at first paralyzed at the unexpected 
sight, and seemed to gaze upon him as upon some 
unreal thing, distrusting the evidence of her sen- 
ses. She would have screamed, but her tongue 
clove to the roof of her mouth ; she attempted to 


move, but her limbs refused^ their office. A night- 
mare feeling crept over her, and she seemed fasci- 
nated into immobility. 

Leslie himself was so overpowered with the long 
controlled passion which was now bursting forth, 
that he could not speak ; heavy and audible breath- 
ings, and eyes that looked as though they would 
burst from their sockets, were the only evidences of 
his existence. At length, in broken accents, he 
uttered the name of “ Agnes !” and seized her hand. 
His voice and touch in a moment restored her to 
herself. She rushed towards the door, but Leslie 
intercepted her in her passage ; she turned to ring 
the bell, and, found, to her agony, that the pull had 
been conveyed out of her reach. 

She stood for a moment in mute despair. Leslie 
approached her, but she motioned him away. At 
length, she seemed to assume sufficient courage to 
speak ; ana in hurried accents and unconnected 
sentences, she exclaimed — 

“ How dare you — thus — add — insult to — to — ” 
and then forgetting herself, “ how come you here, 
sir]” 

At this moment, the wind agitated the window 
curtain, and Leslie’s eyes being attracted in that 
direction, she exclaimed, “ Ha ! the window !” and 
rushed towards it with a precipitance and force 
that would have dashed through it into the garden, 
though it was two stories from the ground, had not 
Leslie fortunately caught her just in time to pre- 
vent such a catastrophe. 

The imminent risk she had run in this attempt 
at escape, made Leslie cool; and as he brought her, 
resisting with all her strength, from the window, lie 
exclaimed — 

Agnes ! Agnes ! why this agitation] Would 
you prefer death — ” 

“ Death — destruction — any thing,” interrupted 
she, “ to this unlooked-for insult.” 

“ Nay, hear me; you must hear me. It is im- 
possible for me to live, deprived as I am of your 
society. Calm this agitation; you are safe — you 
are indeed, with me — with one who loves as I do,” 
said Leslie ; “ only hear me — ” 

“ To-morrow ! to-morrow !” and Agnes almost 
screamed these words, “ Leave me now, and I wi 11* 
bless you — pray for you !” 

“ I will — I will,” said Leslie, almost inarticu- 
lately, “ presently ; only hear me — -listen to me. 
We both love — nay, it is useless to deny it — we 
both love to madness — with a passion preying 
upon our hearts, and hurrying both of us into our 
graves.” 

“ Oh, would to God I were in mine !” wept Ag- 
nes; and Leslie rejoiced in her tears. 

“ Nay, but why should we sacrifice the best feel- 
ings of our existence to paltry prejudices, which 
ought not to fetter such souls as ours — ” 

“ Sir Robert Leslie insult me not; I will not hear 
you and Agnes turned away. 

“ Can the sacrifice of a neglectful, unworthy 
husband, be put in competition with such a love as 
mine ] Can the opinions of the contemptible and 
prejudiced few, weigh against those passions upon 
which heaven and nature have set their seals, 
by the enjoyments they have annexed to their 
indulgence ]” 

“ Sir Robert Leslie leave me — I entreat — I 
command — I implore — ” and she screamed af 


THE ROUfi. 


95 


loudly as her strength would permit for assist- 
ance. 

“Nay — nay — Agnes, the few servants who re- 
main in the house are out of hearing. Trevor, your 
natural protector and guardian, is away — all I ask 
is a patient hearing — and you shall be safe,” said 
Leslie, amd he approached nearer to her. 

Agnes was sensible of the truth of what he 
said, and weeping, receded from him. 

“ Agnes, I love you — love you with a love as 
devoted as it is ardent. I have loved you from the 
first moment I saw you, and stifled my passion in 
my own breast, lest its expression should give of- 
fence to the object of my heart’s warmest feelings 
— accident alone discovered it. Your determina- 
tion to banish me from your presence has only 
added strength to my passion; while I saw you and 
conversed with you daily, it was some alleviation 
to my feelings — but deprived of your society, they 
have become too strong for me to control — and I 
am here — to throw myself — my heart — my life — 
my very soul, upon your mercy ! Agnes, I am 
desperate — but you may govern me. Agnes, I am 
mad — but you may control me. I love you — with 
a love surpassing the power of expression — and 
his voice was scarcely audible in the passionate 
whisper to which it appeared to be reduced by ex- 
cess of feeling. 

Agnes could not reply. Her tears flowed faster 
— her bosom heaved convulsively — she seemed 
sinking on the floor. Leslie saw and felt his ad- 
vantage, and caught her in his arms. This action 
loused her in a moment; she attempted to start 
away, but he only held her closer to his breast. It 
was in vain she struggled. Leslie felt her warm 
breath mingle with his own. His lips were upon her 
cheek. Her sob became a suppressed shriek — her 
struggle almost the ineffectual effort of an infant: 
but as he attempted to lift her from the floor, she 
suddenly reassumed a portion of her energy, and 
slipping through his arms, sunk on her knees before 
him. 

“ Sir — Leslie,” said she, in a voice which, though 
only a whisper, was so articulate, that every word 
would have made its way to the heart of any one 
but such a man as Leslie, “ As a man of honor — • 
tor the love of heaven — by every thing that is 
sacred — I conjure you to leave me — as you may 
one day have a daughter — or a wife of your 
own ” 

“ Never, never, Agnes,” interrupted he, “ you 
have so engrossed every feeling of my heart, that 
it can never beat for another. I have controlled 
my passions beyond the powers of human nature — 

I can resist them no longer ;” and he again attempted 
to take her in his arms. 

She struggled violently ; to scream she found im- 
possible — when suddenly one violent knock was 
heard, that made Leslie start, and enabled Agnes to 
free herself for a moment from his arms. The knock 
was again repeated. It was evidently at the street 
door ; and for the sound ^to have reached to that 
remote apartment, must have been struck with pro- 
digious violence. 

The sound seemed to reach to the very heart of 
Agnes; and Leslie himself appeared to tremble at 
ts repetition, without being able to account for its 
effect upon him. He stood as Juan did when he' 
heard the knock that announced the arrival of the 


Commendatore’s ghost. The silence, however, 
which succeeded, gave him time to think ; and he 
had almost concluded it to be the result of some 
frolic, when hurried footsteps were heard to approach 
the dressing room door, and Flounce rushed in, 
pale as death, and, falling upon her knees before 
Agnes, exclaimed — “ Oh ! my master ! — my mas- 
ter !” 

“ Thank heaven ! thank heaven ! — then I am 
safe !” exclaimed Agnes, and sunk fainting on a 
chair. 

Leslie started, and cried out, “ Where, where 1 
by which passage is he coming '!” 

But the sobs and screams of Flounce were in- 
creased into hysterics, and nothing that she attempt- 
ed to say could be comprehended. 

Leslie, apprehensive every moment that Trevor 
would follow her into the room, unwilling to re- 
linquish his prey, hastily formed a resolution to 
carry off Agnes by the staircase that led to the gar- 
den. For this purpose he unlocked the door lead- 
ing into the room before mentioned as communica- 
ting with Trevor’s apartments and with this private 
staircase. He was quite fearless of any resistance 
on the part of Flounce, and knowing his agents 
all on the alert, he was in hopes, while her senses 
were still so nearly overpowered, that he might 
succeed in his desperate attempt. 

He seized the fainting, and now unresisting Agnes 
in his arms, and bore her to this apartment. As he 
entered, however, and approached the door that led 
to the staircase, he was struck by the sound of a 
number of confused footsteps evidently hurrying to- 
wards it on the other side. 

Agnes heard them likewise; and the hope of 
escape gave her a momentary power to free herself 
from the hold of Leslie. She rushed towards the 
door ; but before she could reach it, or Leslie either 
prevent her, or retreat, it was thrown suddenly open, 
and Trevor’s own man entered with lights, fol- 
lowed by five or six common looking men, who 
were bearing the breathless and still bleeding 
corpse of his master stretched upon a shutter on 
their shoulders. The cravat had been taken off, 
and the open shirt showed the wound in the breast 
by which his death had been occasioned, and 
which became exposed as they placed the body 
upon a table. 

Agnes started with horror — gazed once upon the 
pale countenance, from which death had not yet 
wij)ed the stamp of those fierce passions by which 
it had so lately been agitated — gave one piercing 
shriek, and was borne by the surrounding people 
back to her own apartments. 

Leslie saw that Trevor was really dead — compre- 
hended in a moment all that had happened, and 
quitting the house unobserved in the confusion, 
rushed with the feelings of a disappointed madman 
— first to the place at which he had lefl Trevor, 
where he heard the true history of the fatal 
catastrophe, and then to his own home. 

LESLIE TO viLLABs. — (In Continuation.) 

Fred, fate has determined that Trevor should 
never be a cuckold. The destinies themselves have 
enlisted in the preservation of his honor as a hus- 
band ; and rather than he should live to be branded 
with that ignominious epithet, they have actually 


96 


THE ROUfi. 


killed him. Killed him, say you 1 — Yes, Vi liars, 
Trevor is dead / Don’t start; but he is actually 
dead. Unfortunately for himself, he saw through 
the arts of those with whom he was playing — ac- 
cused them of false play — swore the dice were 
loaded and the cards packed — became very intem- 
perate — struck one of his companions, who hap- 
pened to be an Irishman and a fire-eater. Nothing 
would do but immediate satisfaction. Pistols were 
unhappily at hand; they went* out on the instant 
by moonlight, and the first fire Trevor was shot 
through the heart. This comes of employing fel- 
lows who go beyond their instructions, which is 
quite as bad as net acting up to them. The offi- 
cious scoundrel who shot him, and who has been 
concerned in more secrets of yours and mine than 
I care for, is on his way to Dover, with the 
horses I had provided for a dififerent purpose. 
Farewell. 


> 0 ^ 


CHAPTER XXXVir. 


Maruiaoes in High Life. — Yesterday morn- 
ing, at St. James’s Church, Sir Robert Leslie, 
Bart., w^as united to the accomplished widow of 
the late Honorable Charles ’I’revor; and at the 
same time, Francis Hartley, Esquire, M. P., led 
the beautiful Lady Emily Trevor to the altar. 
Carriages-and-four were in waiting at the church 
doors, to convey both the happy couples to Leslie 
Hall, where they intended to pass the autumn, 
and where they will be joined by a large party 
of fashionables to partake in the festivities of 
Christmas.” 

The reader must be apprised that many months 
had elapsed since the awful death of Trevor before 
the marriages recorded in the foregoing paragraph 
took place. 

That event had completely foiled Leslie, and 
overturned every project he had formed. Agnes, 
free and unfettered, and open to his legitimate 
pursuit. Was, as he had foreseen, a very different 
person from the Agnes united by a wayward des- 
tiny to a man every way unfit for her, and pur- 
sued by one who loved her with a passion that 
appeared as ardent as he asserted it was involun- 
tary and unconquerable. The expression of that 
feeling, and of the wishes it had created, might find 
apology for the madness of passion when there 
were no legitimate means of gratifying it ; jjut the 
obstacle once removed — a legitimate path being 
opened, Leslie knew that there was no hope for 
him through any other. The very attempt would 
give the lie to all he had said — to all he had sworn 
■ — to all he had urged; and he cursed the violence 
of his agent, which had led to a catastrophe 
so far beyond his intentions with regard to 
Trevor, and which had placed him in such a 
predicament. 

But Leslie had been too much addicted to the 
indulgence of every whim and passion that had 
ever entered his mind, to be able to give up even | 


one ungratified. He had never fixed his inclina- 
tions on a woman, and uttered his imperious 
“ I WILL,” that he had not accomplished his 
wishes; and feeling for Agnes a sentiment a thou- 
sand times more powerful than he had ever expe 
rienced before, he found, or believed, it impossible 
to resign his hopes of making her his. It was 
in vain he argued upon the dangers of marriage, or 
upon the absurdity of any other expectation. It 
was in vain he strove, in the society of other 
women, to forget her. His inclinations had taken 
so strong a hold upon his heart, that his passion 
had become disease ; and he felt that were he to 
fly as far as the Antipodes, the idea of leaving such 
a powerful passion ungratified, and Agnes open to 
the honorable pursuits of others, would have brought 
him back again. 

During this period, too, he received letter after 
letter from Villars, dissuading him from venturing 
on such a step under his present circumstances: 
and another letter had also arrived, and been 
intercepted, in the same hand-writing as the pre 
ceding ones, still warning Agnes strongly against 
him, and still accounting for the writer’s absence, 
by his pursuit of some object of Leslie’s seduction 
and desertion. Leslie knew well the circumstance 
to which the letter alluded, and cursed the offi- 
ciousness of the writer; while he vowed to be 
deeply revenged upon this anonymous accuser, 
should it ever be his fortune to discover him. 

Nothing, however, could wean him from his 
determinaticui to succeed. His passions had been 
too long uncontrolled to be governed by his reason, 
and he went on. 

Another incentive to his passion, and which 
perhaps operated nearly, if not quite, as strongly as 
his own violent inclinations, was the refusal of 
Agnes to see him. The horrors of the scene in 
Trevor’s room, and of his sudden and unexpected 
death, hud scarcely subsided, when reflection 
brought to her mind the audacious attempt of 
Leslie ; and she shuddered almost as much at 
what might have been the event, as she did at that 
to which perhaps her safety was in a great mea- 
sure attributable. Her grief, or rather perhaps her 
horror, therefore, at Trevor’s fate, was succeeded 
by an indignation against Leslie, which it required 
all his address to allay. It was still however 
several weeks before his persevering attempts to 
see her were crowned with success : when he did 
at length obtain an interview, knowing that she 
really loved him, he took advantage of this know- 
ledge, and pleaded his cause and his apology so 
successfully, that he at last wrought on her to 
believe that every thing had arisen from the excess 
of his passion ; and found an excuse for his conduct 
in the madness which was the consequence of his 
love, of her unhappiness, and of the hopeless 
circumstances of their situation. 

It will be easy enough for those who do not love, 
to blame Agnes for ever again seeing or listening to 
Leslie; but let those who blame her, themselves 
love the object who has offended them, and they 
will find it quite as easy, as Agnes did, to pardon 
and forget the offence, when the heart pleads for 
the offender; and when the offence is supposed to 
have arisen from that which every woman views 
with an eye of favor — excess of love. Agnes was 
not, like the reader, aware of the real character of 


THE R0U13. 


97 


Leslie. It should be recollected, that to her he ap- 
peared only a romantic and impassioned being, suf- 
fering a martyrdom under feelings she herself had 
inspired, and giving w'ay to them at length only 
through the uncontrollable strength of a passion 
which had overcome his reason. All this was no 
apology for the insult olfered to her honor; and she 
was herself too much involved in her own feelings 
for Leslie to recollect, that the woman who has 
once heard sentiments of a dishonorable nature from 
the lips of a man, should be very guarded in believ- 
ing those of an opposite tendency, when it is so 
much the interest of his passion to express them. 

The circumstances attending the death of Trevor 
nad made much greater impression, and occasioned 
much more grief in the mind of Agnes, than his 
death itself. She was above the affectation of a 
sentiment she could not feel; and the terms on 
which she had lived with Trevor being well known 
to the world, there existed no occasion for the dis- 
play of much sorrow on the occasion. 

Many of her acquaintance, who knew Trevor in- 
timately, indeed considered his death as a matter of 
congratulation ; and would have treated it so, even 
with Agnes herself, had the propriety of her own 
feelings permitted it. 

Though Trevor had never respected himself, 
Agnes was determined that as few people as possi- 
ble should have to cast a reflection upon his memo- 
ry. All his own estate, as he died without child- 
ren, passed to another branch of his family ; so that 
there was nothing to satisfy his numerous cre- 
ditors but his wife’s fortune, which having been all 
settled upon herself, was not liable to any of his 
debts. To rescue the memory of Trevor from as 
much odium as possible, she discharged every claim 
that could be made against him, not excepting those 
contracted in the indulgence of that vice which had 
led to his death; among these were the sums due to 
Leslie, the amount of which she contrived to ascer- 
tain and to pay in spite of all he could do to pre- 
vent it ; and it was during the negotiation of this 
affair that he managed by stratagem to gain his first 
interview after the death of Trevor. 

Her forgiveness once obtained, all other steps 
were easy enough ; and in time they led to the re- 
sult narrated in the paragraph. This marriage, 
however, did not take place without many strug- 
gles on the part of Leslie to resist the influence of 
a feeling which was leading him into a path from 
which he knew there was no retreating. But this 
passion was so predominant over every other feel- 
ing, that it conquered in spite of all his resistance, 
and in spite of his better judgment. The moment the 
irrevocable step was taken, he despatched a courier 
to Villars, urging him to employ every system of 
espionage to discover the retreat of those who had 
now so long and so successfully eluded his vigi- 
lance, and who did not appear to have been yet 
discovered by the writer of the anonymous warn- 
ings. 

During the last year Leslie had so conducted 
himself to the eyes of Hartley and Lady Emily, as 
to give them such security of his reform, that know- 
ing the love Agnes bore to him, they did all in their 
power to promote their union. On the part of Ag- 
nes herself, disbelieving all the reports she had 
heard to his disadvantage, struck by the brilliancy 
of his talents, the elegance of his manners, and by 


the apparent devotedness of his love, it was no won- 
der that she gave herself up to the indulgence of a 
feeling which was now in her eyis perfectly inno- 
cent. 

Sir Robert Leslie, as a man quite comme ilfauty 
a baronet with a large estate, wdth a peerage 
in reversion, was precisely the person Lady Pome- 
roy would like to call nephew, and that Mrs. Henry 
Pomeroy would be happy to distinguish by the 
title of brother : so no wonder that the match met 
with their sanction. 

Lady Emily’s hand had been joined with that 
of Hartley by her mother on her death-bed; and 
her esteem and friendship were so excited by his 
unwearied attentions, that they were ripened into 
that feeling which enabled her conscientiously to 
bestow it upon him at the altar. After their mar- 
riage, Leslie himself was so surprised at the supe- 
rior degree of delight that he enjoyed in the society 
of a woman who considered herself legitimately 
his, and who could give herself up to all those sen- 
timents which he had never excited in another, 
unalloyed by those feelings of guilt which operated 
against their enjoyment in the objects of his pas- 
sion, and lowered them in his esteem, that, for the 
first time in his life, he felt that he could have been 
happy, but from circumstances which would still 
intrude upon his .^lemory to mar his felicity. Still 
there was sufficient in the full accomplishment 
of wishes so long indulged, to satisfy even such a 
mind as his ; and to his surprise, the possession of 
Agnes had as yet only added to his passion. 

Agnes herself was perfectly happy ; married to 
the man she loved ; believing herself loved de- 
votedly in return. Ignorant of every thing but 
what she felt and saw, existence again teemed 
with every pleasure for her, and she looked upon 
Leslie as the person to whom this happy change 
was attributable. 

If a cloud would ever come over the sunshine 
of her happiness, it was when she sometimes 
observed Leslie to be restless and uneasy, and 
which w'as invariably the case whenever he ha.d 
any letters from the continent. At these periods 
he would appear anxious and agitated at every 
knock at the door, and at the announcement of any 
name to which he was unaccustomed. 

But as these fits were only of short duration, and 
the suavity of his manners soon returned, she 
regretted them without any suspicion being excited 
that they arose from any thing more than some 
temporary annoyance. 

Thus month after month rolled on Happily with 
Agnes, and with a strange mixture of anxiety and 
pleasure with Leslie. At the end of the year, her 
happiness was increased by the birth of a girl, who 
created a new outlet for all the affectionate feelings 
of her heart, by exciting a new affection, and by 
increasing, if possible, that which she felt for 
Leslie. 

He, however, to her surprise, expressed no plea- 
sure at an event so fraught for her with additional 
happiness; but this being attributed both by her- 
self and friends to his disappointment at the child’s 
not being a boy, which a little time would wear off, 
was permitted to pass unnoticed. 

Leslie’s mind and affections were, however, 
undergoing a rapid change ; he had been too much 
of a selfish sensualist to enjoy a^^y other pleasures 


98 


THE ROUfi. 


long, than those which were centred in self; and 
the appearance of Agnes as a mother, and in the 
performance of a mother’s duty, had precisely the 
contrary effect to that which would have been pro- 
duced on a well regulated heart and mind. 

The pleasures of domestic enjoyment were be- 
coming too tame for him ; they were not sufficiently 
exciting to relieve his mind from some circumstance, 
the memory and the pain of which, in spite of him- 
self, destroyed his tranquillity. In the society, there- 
fore, of a few of his most select companions, he 
indulged in his old propensities; but this was done 
so cautiously, that it was unknown and unsuspected 
by Agnes. 

About this period, the reversionary peerage and 
estate fell in ; and every body was surprised at the 
eagerness with which he assumed his new title of 
Lord Arlington, and the tenacity with which he 
determined, except in his own private coterie, never 
to permit himself to be addressed by the name of 
Leslie 

Some attributed this to caprice ; others to pride. 
Leslie himself, and La Tour, alone knew the rea- 
sons for it. 

Leslie was, however, doomed to experience other 
miseries than those arising from this secret anxiety, 
as the old tone of his mind returned ; with it also 
returned his old evil opinion of women ; and as he 
still saw that Agnes was all that a man could de- 
sire in a woman whom he had not possessed, he 
began to imagine that she might become the object 
of other men’s dishonorable pursuits, as she had 
once been of his own. 

His recollections of tjhe use he had made of the 
services of Flounce made him determine to remove 
her from the person of his wife, lest she might be 
tempted to betray her to others, as she had once 
been wrought upon to betray her to himself. Of 
this circumstance Agnes had been kept in entire 
ignorance, or she would herself have been the 
first to remove her from her situation with dis- 
grace. 

To manage this removal of Flounce, he tried to 
persuade La Tour to marry her; but the wily 
Frenchman, in such a service as that of Leslie, had 
seen too much of matrimony to venture his own 
neck within its pale. 

At this period Leslie received a letter from Vil- 
lars, which redoubled all his anxiety. La Tour 
was dispatched to Calais; confidential agents were 
sent to Boulogne and Dieppe; and every post 
brought letters from them, all of which were eagerly 
:>pened by Leslie, who had the utmost difficulty to 
cenceal the agitation in which he lived. 

Agnes, who had discovered some of the incipient 
appearances of Leslie’s jealousy, attributed every I 
thing to the same source, and immediately did j 
every thing in her power to allay them, by increas- 
ing the evidences of her own affection and happi- 
ness, and b}' confining her patronage and praise 
almost exclusively to female talent; for she had 
thought once or twice that she had read something 
like uneasiness in his eye, when she had, with her 
usual exuberance of feeling, given way to the praise 
of men of genius, and so ardently sought to add 
thorn t{> the many attractions of her table and draw- 
ing room. This very jealousy, however, by con- 
vincing her of the unabated ardour of his love, per- 
hai>i increased the happiness to which the birth of 


her child had added in so great a degree. As a 
wife, therefore, and as a mother, Agnes was com* 
pletely happy ; and she again indulged in all the 
romance of her disposition, by anticipating the pro- 
gress and perfection of her infant in maturity, 
and by Indulging in all the fond dreams of a young 
mother with her first child. 

Their marriages had only increased the intimacy 
of the two friends. Lady Emily had found much 
more than she expected in Hartley. Every day 
brought forth some new trait to admire, or the 
knowledge of some new characteristic to excite 
esteem. She had never perhaps felt the more 
ecstatic pleasures of Agnes, but she experienced 
a more tranquil happiness, and felt that it was 
grounded upon a more solid basis than the mere 
gratificatrions of passion. 

Not possessed of the same ample means, and not 
coveting the power which the fashion of Agnes 
gave her to patronise merit with effect, but yet 
having the same inclinations to befriend struggling 
talent. Lady Emily Hartley, on occasions in which 
her sympathies had been excited and her aid soli- 
cited, had been in the habit of engaging her friend 
to interest herself in the welfare of any of her 
proteges. 

During her residence with Lady Trevor on the 
Continent, and at that lady’s death, she had been 
under considerable obligations to a noble family 
at Florence, a sense of whi«h she had expressed 
an anxiety to show by every return in her power, 
and this opportunity was afforded her by a letter 
which she had received, recommending an Italian 
family to her notice and protection. 

This family consisted of an elderly gentleman 
and a young and beautiful female. They were 
kindly received by Lady Emily ; but although they 
confessed themselves in straitened dircurastances^ 
they refused every other kind of aid than that 
which might enable the lady to make some use of 
her talent for music; which from the little that 
Lady Emily heard, appeared to be extraordinary. 
As usual, she applied to her friend, who promised 
every assistance, and proposed to produce her at 
one of her own concerts, which was the surest 
way to bring her into fashion, and to secure her 
professional engagements. 

Leslie, however, unable to explain the cause 
of the fears by which he was now perpetually 
assailed, and which, in spite of his usual firm 
nerves, kept him in a continual state of agitation 
and seeing no remedy for them while the letters of 
Villars still left the destination of the object un- 
known, determined at length to gratify the long 
anxious desire of Agnes to travel. Anything he 
felt was better than the state of anxiety in which 
he lived in his own house, where every knock at 
the door gave him a palpitation of the heart, and 
the introduction of every stranger excited an un- 
pleasant suspicion in his mind. 

When this determination was announced to 
Agnes, it was received with delight ; first, because 
she anticipated much gratification to her taste and 
imagination from the variety of scenery and the 
novelty of the objects which she was going to see • 
and secondly, because she attributed it to the wist 
of Leslie to gratify a long expressed inclination ol 
hers. 

To travel had long been the desire of Agne« 


THE ROUfi. 


99 


to see the places she had heard and read of so 
much — to visit the Imperial City — to sojourn in 
the scenes of departed greatness, was delight ; but 
to do this with a companion who engrossed every 
feeling of her heart ; to do this with one so capable 
of doubling every pleasure by the information he 
could afford ; and to travel thus, accompanied as it 
were by all the best affections of life, for her 
beloved child, with her nursery menage, was to be 
of their party, was indeed happiness to the heart 
of Agnes, 

She likewise promised herself additional plea- 
sure from the contemplation of places in which 
some portion of the life of Leslie had been passed. 
Alas ! she little knew how passed, or she would 
not have been anxious to have recalled the circum- 
stances connected with these scenes to his recol- 
lection. 

From the moment that this tour was determined 
on, Leslie’s mind became easier; he was sensible 
of the superior power of money on the Continent, 
should any realization of his fears occur there, and 
he knew also by experience, that there were a 
hundred ways of silencing the laws there, while 
here, with the high as well as the low, with 
the wealthy as well as the wretched. Justice takes 
its course. Here, indeed, blindness is her proper 
illustration. 

While the preparations for departure were going 
forward, and which by their extent seemed to indi- 
cate an intention of a long sojourn abroad, Agnes 
issued cards for a farewell which was intended 
to outvie in splendor all that had hitherto been 
given in Audlcy Square, and at which she deter- 
mined to produce her friend Lady ^m\\y' s protegee 
to the fashionable world, kindly sensible that suc- 
cess at one of her parties would give such a stamp 
of currency to her talents as would ensure her the 
patronage of all the Hite of society, and thus would 
prevent her being any loser by her own unexpected 
absence. 

On the occasion of all her fomer fetes, Leslie 
had appeared uneasy; had been anxious to know 
the number and quality of the guests; had been 
particular in his inquiries as to the foreigners likely 
to be present; and objected to the general invita- 
tions forwarded to the different ambassadors; but 
on this occasion he entered with the same spirit as 
Agnes herself into the preparations, and seemed 
quite as much determined as she was to do 
any thing that should make the party go off with 
eelat. 

Paragraph after paragraph announced the antici- 
pated splendor of this assembly ; those who had unfor- 
tunately fixed on the same eveningfor their own par- 
ties postponed them, both from the wish of attending 
Lady Arlington’s, and from the fear of their own 
rooms being empty. 

The evening at length came; the company ar- 
rived ; the splendid apartments were filled to suffo- 
cation with all the rank and talent of the country. 
Agnes was every where attempting to communi- 
cate to her guests the happiness she herself expe- 
rienced. She moved about the envy of some, the 
admiration of all, and had never appeared a more 
charming hostess than on this evening. The en- 
tertainments were to commence with a concert, to 
which the talents of all the principal professors, 
both foreign and English, were to contribute. 


The music was of the highest order. English 
melody was interspersed with Italian and German 
concerted pieces. Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, 
kept up the character of Germany ; Rossini and 
Paisiello were given as specimens of the Italian 
masters; while Locke, Purcell, and Bishop, sus- 
tained the reputation of English composition. 

At length a buzz ran through the room that a 
new singer, a protegee of Lady Emily Hartley’s 
was to be produced, under the patronage of 
Lady Arlington, and that she was just then going 
to sing. 

Knowing Leslie’s love of music, Agnes had re- 
served this, which she knew would be a treat to 
him from his knowledge, that the surprise of such 
an exhibition might add to his pleasure. On look 
ing round, however, at this moment, she perceived 
that he was absent, and supposing him in an ad- 
joining apartment which communicated with the 
concert room, behind the orchestra, and which had 
been reserved as a sort of retiring room for them- 
selves, and to communicate instructions to the ser- 
vants, she despatched Hartley to summon him to 
the expected treat. 

In the meantime the new singer was led to the 
front of the orchestra by Lady Emily, who placed her- 
self in a seat near her. She was followed and en- 
couraged by an elderly looking personage, of a very 
interesting appearance; but though his silver hairs 
bespoke his age, his features seemed to depict ex- 
traordinary energy of character; and as he stood 
at the back of the chair, his furrowed and stern 
countenance formed a fine contrast to the pensive 
and youthful character of that of the new debutante. 
When she first entered, a long veil scarcely per- 
mitted a view of her face, and she sat down under 
considerable agitation ; encouraged, however, by the 
looks of Lady Emily, and by her aged companion, 
she appeared to assume new courage. 

As she stood up to sing, and drew aside her veil, 
shaking back the long black ringlets which shaded 
her fine forehead, a universal buzz of admiration at 
her beauty ran through the assembly. Her coun- 
tenance was a perfect oval ; her complexion pre- 
sented that rare combination of dark eyes with a 
face fair almost to whiteness. Her eyes and hair 
were black and lustrous. Her hair, which hung in 
natural ringlets over her shoulders, was confined 
only by the veil which was pinned by a diamond 
in the centre of her forehead, from which it parted, 
hanging over her neck in fashion of a Spanish 
mantilla. The rest of her dress was of the simplest 
description, and by its very simplicity was calcu- 
lated to show off the fineness of her form, which 
was full, without being large. As the expressions 
of the admiration she excited reached her ear, the 
color brightened in her cheek, and as it subsided 
into silence, as one of Mozart’s symphonies com- 
menced, her agitation was so conspicuous that 
many thought she would not be able to accomplish 
her task. As the symphony died away, however, 
and the fine rich tones of her voice swelled through 
the apartment, ir? the recitative all fears of this 
kind were dissipated, and many a disappointed pro- 
fessor was obliged reluctantly to confess that the 
anticipations raised in her favor were about to be 
more than realized. 

The exertion used in the recitative had given 
her courage and energy, and she began the 


100 


THE ROUfi. 


air with such power as to electrify her au- 
dience. 

Agnes, herself delighted, was beginning to be 
quite vexed at the absence of Leslie, when the 
door of a private communication opened, and he 
entered ; she beckoned him to a seat near her with 
her finger held up to hush him into silence and atten- 
tion : he stole softly to her side, returning the smile 
of pleasure wdth which she had greeted him, and 
turning round to look at the object of universal ad- 
miration, who was at this moment indulging in 
one of those luxuriant cadenzas which the compo- 
sition permitted, when, to the astonishment of Ag- 
nes, he started, turned pale, and uttering a half 
exclamation of horror, would have quitted the 
room. At this moment the attention of the singer 
being directed to the spot, her eyes met those of 
Leslie, the book dropped from her hand, she 
uttered one piercing shriek, exclaimed, “e egli! 
e il mio ? 7 /ari/o,”and sunk back senseless into the 
arms of her aged companion. 

The moment, however, that he comprehended the 
cause of her illness, and saw Leslie making his 
way from Agnes and through the company, which 
W'ere now crowding towards the orchestra to learn 
the cause of the disturbance, he exclaimed in Eng- 
lish, “Alive ! I was sure of it.” In a moment he 
resigned his charge to Lady Emily, and leaping 
with the elasticity of youth in his limbs, and with 
more than its energy in his countenance, from the 
elevated seat of the orchestra, he seized Leslie by 
«he arm, and with a strength, which to Leslie’s 
paralyzed nerves seemed that of a giant, dragged 
him tow^ards the still fainting singer. At this mo- 
ment Agnes, utterly unable to comprehend either 
the agitation of Leslie, or any part of the scene 
passing before her, but apprehensive from the sud- 
den attack, as it seemed to her, of the foreigner 
upon Lord Arlington, that mischief was intended 
him, rushed forward, exclaiming, “ Oh save my 
husband !” 

“ Your husband,” replied the old man, in a voice 
of thunder! “ Your husband ! none has a right, 
either here or elsewhere, to address him by that ti- 
tle but that injured being, that being who now lies 
senseless before you, killed perhaps at last by the 
injuries and the desertion of this man : but God is 
merciful and just. His ways are inscrutable, but 
they lead to light at last; and now, in spite of his 
j retended death; in spite of villany heaped on vil- 
leny ; in spite of project after project to escape from 
the pursuit of his intended victim ; behold the mur- 
derer of an injured woman’s peace! the destroyer of 
her earthly happiness, and had his insidious arts 
been successful, of her heavenly hopes, at last open 
to the calls of offended justice.” 

“ Away, imposter,” cried Leslie in fury; and re- 
suming his courage, “I am Lord Arlington. This 
is deception. What accusation canst thou have 
asainst Lord Arlington 1” Leslie said this in the 
hope that the name might perhaps shield him. 

“ Sir Robert Leslie,” vociferated the old priest, 
“ Sir Robert Leslie is the man I call to justice, and 
thou art he. You know I am no impostor; you 
know yourself to be the husband of Angelica diCa- 
rini ; you know this to be your wife, your legal 
wife, not only in the sight of that Heaven which 
witnessed your mutual vows, and which you would 
l»ave dared to offend, and might have offended with 


impunity on earth; but also by those human lawi 
which thou canst not evade : you know this ; and 
you know that I have such irrefragable proofs afford- 
ed me by that beneficent stranger, to whom this in- 
jured being owes the preservation of her honor, that 
thou canst not escape.” 

Agnes, who, on Leslie’s appeal as to the name 
of Arlington, had waited with breathless expectation 
for the reply, felt the heart-sickening conviction of 
the old man’s truth, when in that reply he called 
him by the name of Leslie. These few moments 
had destroyed for her every hope of happiness on 
earth ; she was the wife of a man whom she had 
no right to call husband, and this circumstance 
proved this man to be an unprincipled villain — her 
own spotless fame blemished — and her child, in 
whom so many of her hopes were centered, inno- 
cent as she was, cursed wdth the stain of illegitima- 
cy. As these agonising thoughts crowded on her 
mind, a mist spread itself before her eyes, and 
fainting in the arms of those around her she 
was speedily conveyed to her own apartments. 

Leslie, lashed into desperation, with one energe- 
tic exertion threw the old man from him with a 
force that sent him to the ground, then casting a 
look of fury mingled with contempt at the surround- 
ing crowd, he strode out of the apartment, in spite 
of the cries of the old man to stop him ; and before 
an hour had passed, was on the road to the Conti- 
nent. 

The Italian lady was borne senseless from the 
room. Lady Emily rushed to the consolation of 
her friend ; and the guests having now indistinctly 
understood the circumstances which had interrupted 
the entertainment, departed as fast as their carriages 
could be summoned, mingling their regrets for the 
loss of the splendid supper they had promised them- 
selves with a hundred exclamations of surprise at 
what had taken place, and many significant hints 
that they had always known that all was not 
right. 

A few days after this scene had taken place, 
the following paragraph went the round of the 
morning papers. 

“THE LATE MYSTERIOUS AFFArR IN HIGH LIFE.” 

“We understand that, in consequence of the 
mysterious circumstances which have created so 
much distress in a certain noble family, that the 
London establishment has been broken up, one of 
the heads of it having departed very suddenly for 
the Continent, and the other being determined on 
the closest retirement. The Italian lady, w’hose 
presence it is said has been the cause of such a di> 
mestic revolution, is still under the hands of medi- 
cal advisers, who give very few hopes of her reco- 
very from the shock she has experienced.” 




CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

It was some years after these events that an 
English traveller was seen pursuing his loneiy 


THE ROUE. 


101 


course along the Via Emilia, and by the banks of 
the Trebia. He had travelled several times through 
the whole of Italy, and avoiding society, and show- 
ing an aversion to study the manners of the exist- 
ing inhabitants of this “blue skied” country, seem- 
ed to live only with the dead. 

As he stood upon the plains of Trebia, the names 
of Annihal, of Mago, of Scipio, and of Sempronius, 
rjse before him, clad in all the pride of conquest, or 
sinking under the shame of defeat; and then 
came the idea of the lapse of that time, which con- 
quers the conqueror — and of the little value of the 
ddference between defeat and victory, when a few 
short years and the hand of death rendered them 
alike to the victor and the vanquished. 

It w'as thus that our melancholy wanderer at- 
tempted to forget himself— and to lose every trace 
of existing circumstances, by a recurrence to those 
that had passed away into that abysm which swal- 
lows the memory of all things. 

With a tenacity bordering on irritation he admit- 
ted no thought of the present. His servant — and 
he travelled with only one, who defrayed all the ex- 
penses, and made all the regulations of his journey 
— saved him all the trouble of travelling; and sel- 
dom interrupted his meditations, only contemplated 
him with an anxious and affectionate solicitude. 

The traveller himself was verging tow^ards fifty ; 
but his brow, divested of all the locks which had 
graced his early manhood, and w'rinkled by the hand 
of care, would have impressed an observer with the 
idea that he had numbered many more than that 
quantity of years, had not his athletic form and 
continued activity of body, preserved in his figure 
an appearance of youth, that gave the lie to his 
careworn countenance. 

I’he expression of his face wSs that of a sedate- 
nes.s, created by the effect of a powerful mind to 
overcome the effect of misfortunes ; and in the fur- 
rows of his brow, the contemplative observer might 
imagine a sad record of past misery. 

As he approached the Pisatello, the Rubicon of 
the ancients, he entered a small, clean town, beau- 
tifully situated at the foot of a ridge of fine hills, 
which seemed to rise like giants from the plain to 
support the villas and convents, and the remains 
of a romantic old castle, which adorned their sum- 
mits. 

At the entrance to this little towm standing in- 
sulated, was a neat cottage, approaching almost to 
the character of a villa. Its white front, its general 
proportions, together with the flowers and vines 
by which it was almost hidden, united with its 
extreme neatness and elegance, arrested the atten- 
tion of our traveller. There was an approach to 
Englishism in the appearance of its garden and 
appurtenances, which particularly struck him ; and 
one of those indefinable curiosities, for which we 
cannot account, came over his mind to know 
something of its inhabitants. 

Almost surprised at a feeling so new to him, he 
desired his servant to put up for the night in the 
village; and driving to the only inn that afforded- 
accommodation for travellers, he w^as speedily 
made the tenant of one of the only two private 
rooms that the house contained. These two apart- 
ments had I>een originally one, but the landlord 
had found his account in the solitary and exclu- 
live propensities of English travellers, in dividing 


it by a thin partition, so as to form two separate, 
but small chambers. 

His servant soon gave the officious padrone 
notice not to annoy his master with his civilities; 
and he w'as left alone to his contemplations. His 
eye W’andered to the window^, which commanded 
a complete, though distant, view of the cottage 
which had before attracted his particular attention. 
It was situated just upon the declivity of one 
of the hills; and from its elevated situation, was 
easily perceptible from all parts of the villa'ge. 
As he gazed upon this cottage with an inteiest for 
which he could not account, he observed several 
persons approach it wdth hurried steps, and after 
having a moment’s conversation with the inmates, 
retire slowly ; and the uplifted hands of some of 
these visiters on their return, seemed to be urging 
some petition to heaven, while the after pressure 
of the hand to the brow, as they seemed to dash 
a tear from their eyes, indicated that they had but 
slender hopes in the effect of their prayers. 

Still interested, he knew not why, he determined 
to ascertain who were the inhabitants of this cot- 
age; and he was on the point of astonishing his 
servant by this inquiry, when his attention was 
arrested by the sound of sobs below, and by the 
attempts of the landlord to soothe the grief of the 
person by whom they were uttered. 

In a moment afterwards his servant entered, 
followed by a young Englishwoman in tears, who 
approached the traveller, attempted for some time 
to explain the meaning of her intrusion ; fUTlength, 
amidst sobs which she tried in vain to ^^Mue, she 
uttered an incoherent sentence, in which “ my 
mistress, my dear mistress,” were the only words 
which her agitation rendered audible. 

The traveller soothed her agitation, and en- 
treated her to speak the cause of her trouble, and 
to tell him how he could assist her; at length 
becoming calmer, she told him that her mistress, 
an English lady, was dying — that she was given 
over — that a few hours must inevitably terminate 
her existence ; and that having heard that an 
English gentleman had just arrived in the village, 
she had despatched her to the inn to entreat his 
presence for a few moments, as a witness to some 
of the acts which were necessary in the final settle- 
ment of her affairs. The messenger finished her 
recital with the exclamation of — “ Oh, my dear, 
dear mistress — my dear mistress !” 

In spite of his morbid melancholy, the traveller 
was instantly alive to all the feelings of kindness 
and benevolence; and seizing his hat, prepared tc 
accompany the girl to her mistress. 

As they passed through the village, every body 
addressed the servant with inquiries after la bien- 
issima signora Inglesa ; and the tears which 
started to their eyes, as the girl silently answered 
them only by a melancholy shake of the head, suf- 
ficiently testified their grief and their esteem for the 
English invalid. 

His interest each moment increasing, he did not 
perceive the path he was pursuing, until he found 
himself at the wicket which led to the cottage, 
which had excited so much interest in his mind ; 
an interest which now appeared to be the efiect of 
presentiment. The wicket was opened, and they 
pursued their way through a narrow serpentine path, 
decorated with flowers and sha,\ed by evergreens, 


102 


THE ROUfi. 


which, interlacing at the top, rendered it almost im- 
pervious to the sun. This path led to a Venitian 
window, opening into a small saloon, which 
formed a vestibule to the larger apartments of the 
house. 

Here they were received by an Italian female 
domestic, likewise in tears, who, to the hurried and 
whispered inquiries of her fellow servant, only 
sobbed a “ No — 7io, — signora'^ and withdrew. 

The English girl now requested the traveller to 
stay here while she communicated his arrival to her 
mistress, and passing into the next room, which 
seemed to be the principal apartment of the cottage, 
she disappeared through the folding doors at the 
other end, leaving, however, all the doors ajar in 
her progress. 

Low murmurs now reached his ear, proceeding 
from the sick chamber ; and he was presently in- 
formed that the dying lady would be ready to receive 
him in a few minutes. 

The messenger closed the door as she departed ; 
and he presently heard a noise like that of wheel- 
ing a couch into the next room, which was every 
now and then mingled with sighs and faint excla- 
mations of pain from the exhausted invalid. 

All was now again silent, and time seemed to 
be taken that the patient might recover the efiect 
of the recent exertion ; at length some footsteps 
softly approached, and opening the folding doors 
wnth such care that they made no noise, the 
English servant beckoned the traveller to ap- 
proaolu 

Thi^ent solemnity of the scene, the group of 
which^OT caught only an indistinct view through 
the doors, and the ideas connected with the circum- 
stance of a countrywoman thus dying in a foreign 
land, all united still for a few moments to arrest his 
steps. 

Recovering himself, however, and collecting all 
his firmness, he entered the apartment. The inva- 
lid was reposing on a large bed-chair, supported by 
pillow's ; on each side of her, resting upon the el- 
bows of the chair, were an aged couple, evidently 
Italians : at a little distance, at her feet, on an otto- 
man, sat a female child, apparently about four or 
five years old — and at the back, were several do- 
mestics with handkerchiefs at the eyes, striving to 
prevent the effusions of that grief which would 
sometimes burst forth in spite of themselves. Guided 
by the pointing finger of the girl who had summon- 
ed him, the traveller advanced, and stood in the 
front of the dying person, who was so placed that 
the light fell full and equally upon both of them. 

Their eyes met: a tremor — a convulsive start, 
that almost moved the chair w'hich supported her, 
'Tpoke the unusual agitation of the sick lady ; while 
le alternately pale and flushed countenance — the 
nger gaze — the trembling limbs of the astonished 
traveller, as he caught at a table for support, be- 
trayed some mutual recognition. In the pale face 
— the sunken cheek — the attenuated form of the 
dying person, the traveller thought he again saw 
the pallid and lifeless form of his first love ; and the 
dying person recognised the tall and manly form 
which she had only once seen when he w'as weep- 
ing, and blessed her over the lifeless remains of her 
mother. 

It was, indeed, Clifton, or rather Walmer and 
the daughter of her whom he had loved so truly — 


so devotedly — so lastingly ; a daughter, whose hap- 
piness had ever been dear to him, though he had 
never seen her excepting in that one interview, 
when over the corpse of her mother they had min- 
gled the tears of innocent childhood and virtuous 
manhood in a stream which fell upon the lifeless 
remains before them; a daughter, whose dying eyes 
he was now called upon to close, while she was yet 
in the earliest stage of life; and whom his various 
warnings had not been able to save from a fate of 
which he knew that the violence of her feelings 
were too likely to make her the victim. 

The effect of her illness — her near approach to 
death — had given to Agnes a still more striking re- 
semblance to her mother; and as Clifton gazed upon 
her at first, his mind was seized for a moment wdth 
the impression, that he was again looking upon the 
corpse of his “ beloved Agnes Dornton — for by 
that name was her memory engraven upon his 
heart. 

On the part of Agnes, the sight of Clifton had 
carried her mind and memory, at one stride, back 
to the days of her youth, to the death of her mo- 
ther, and to all the misery she had experienced 
through that loss. Young as she had been, the ef- 
fect of the scene with Clifton, in the chamber of 
death, was ineffaceable ; and his person too strong- 
ly imprinted upon her memory, by the solemnity 
of the circumstances under which they met, for her 
ever to forget it. Perhaps, too, in the moment ap- 
proaching death, and so near her own departure, it 
is natural for the mind to look back through all the 
life we have passed ; and in such a retrospect, the 
prominent circumstances of existence paint them 
selves upon our memory in vivid colors, and give 
the mind a power of recognition and recollection 
which does not exist in the enjoyment of health and 
in mixture with society. 

His person had also been kept continually in her 
memory from the circumstance of her having, since 
she had, so fatally for herself, discovered their truth, 
connected the mysterious warning she had once re- 
ceived, and those she had since heard of, with the 
person who had sworn to protect and to watch 
over her happiness in such a solemn moment. 

Clifton would not perhaps have recognised Ag- 
nes in the bloom of health, but his heart could not 
mistake her in the strong resemblance she bore to 
the corpse of her mother — a sight that nothing 
could drive from his mind or his memory. 

“ It is — it is,” said he, approaching the invalid, 
and almost kneeling, “ it is Agnes, the. daughter 

of ” He could not proceed — he could not 

utter the name of her who had influenced his des- 
tiny. 

“ It is, indeed,” faintly articulated the dying 
Agnes : “ it is the daughter of her we both wept 
over, and to whose spirit that of her daughter wil’ 
soon be again united. Alas! why did it not qu' 
me then, and accompany hers into realms of blisf 

without having ” Here she stopped every 

one around her seemed absorbed in grief; and Clif- , 
ton, from having for so long a time kept underK 
every expression of human feeling, was agitatedj 
beyond the immediate power of recovery. * 

Agnes was the first to gain her self posses- ; 
sion; and tenderly pressing the hand that had 
taken hers — 

“ Come, sir,” said she, “ come, my second parent, , 


103 


THE 


for such let me call you now, when I am so soon 
going to my eternal one — let me entreat you to 
calm this agitation. I have still some things to do 
in this world which I am quitting — not for my- 
Svdf, but for those I leave behind me — and I would 
willingly soothe this parting hour with the idea 
that every thing that I can do, is done for their 
comfort. As to consolation, time alone will bring 
that ; though the knowledge that I am quitting a 
life of misery ” 

She here breathed with difficulty, and Clifton 
would have prevented her continuance ; but she 
waved her hand, and proceeded — 

‘‘ No, no ; my time is short ; and Providence has 
sent me in you a guardian to yonder infant — for 
which my heart beats with thankfulness; and in hope 
of which 1 find a pleasure which I did not dare 
expect in these solemn moments. For the last 
week I have anxiously hoped that some English 
tiavelh^r might pass through the village ; and I 
had directed that^ any such might have my dying 
request made to them for an interview, that I might 
deposit copies of the last disposition of my property 
in their hands, and entreat their temporary protec- 
tion for her who will soon be parentless. The sight 
of you alters my view. Say, sir — dare I hope that 
the temporary protection, which was the first thing 
I sought, may be converted to perpetual guardian- 
ship 1” 

Clifton assented, and exerted himself sufficiently 
to draw up a paper constituting himself her sole 
executor, and guardian to the child, which she 
named Agnes Dornton. This was immediately 
signed, witnessed, and attached as a codicil to the 
will which she had employed all her strength, for 
the last few weeks, in writing. 

When this was done, a smile played upon her 
pale features, and she said, “ I am satisfied ; then 
making a motion for every one to withdraw save 
Clifton and the child, they were left alone. 

The child was seated close to her mother, and 
perfectly unconscious of the solemnity of the scene 
and the circumstances by which she was surrounded, 
continued picking her flowers to pieces, and scat- 
tering the fragments on the floor. Sometimes she 
would look up and smile in her mother’s face, and 
hold out her lips for a kiss, and stretch out her 
arms for an embrace, which the feebleness of Ag- 
nes scarcely permitted her to grant. 

Parting the locks which clustered on the child’s 
forehead with one hand, and pointing to its coun- 
tenance with the other, “Do you accept the charge]” 
said she. 

“I do; and it shall be the business, as well as 
the pleasure of my life, to fulfil it completely. 
This child shall find a parent in one who never was 
a father, and it shall be my care so to guide her 
young mind — so to regulate her youthful heart — 
that she shall never be the prey — ” 

He stopped, he felt that he had touched a chord 
that must jar upon the mind of Agnes, and he was 
silent. 

“Proceed, proceed,” said she; “I know what 
you would say ; and I bless God for having provided 
a guardian for my daughter who will give that re- 
gulation to her heart and feelings which her mother 
wanted. Poor child ! what may she not have to 
pass through ] The blot uf/on her birth, too;” — 
and here the color mantled on her cheek : — “ but I 


ROUE. 


have overcome my pride now. I look beyond this 
world; I have had a hard struggle to bring my heart 
down, and to submit ; but it is past.” 

She stopped again, some internal pain of 
weakness oppressed her, and Clifton entreated 
her to repose herself, but she refused. 

“ My time is but short — an hour, perhaps, and 
these lips will be pale, and stiff, and cold ; a little 
hour, and I shall be like that sainted mother over 
whom we wept together. But 1 will not agitate you ; 
when I wished to see a countryman, and to interest 
him in the fate of this infant, I expected a stranger. 
All I had then to do was to have entrusted him 
with my will, and to have entreated him to sec 
that my child was sent safely to England : but 
with you it is different. The sight of you has 
brought all the scenes of% my past life before me: 
and the charge you have undertaken makes an ac- 
count of circumstances subsequent to my quitting 
England your due.” 

It was in vain Clifton entreated her to stop — she 
W'ould proceed. She then related her journey to 
Italy, to ascertain the truth of Leslie’s former 
marriage; her discovery of the parents of Angelica 
reduced to poverty and despair by the loss of their 
child, and touched slightly upon the subsequent 
persecutions of Leslie. 

“ In these inquiries I discovered that an attempt 
had been made to deceive Angelica with a false 
marriage, which had been rendered abortive by an 
English stranger.” 

“I — I was the stranger,” exclaimed W’almer. 
“But for me you would have been his wife^” 

“ You ]” faintly asked Agnes. 

“ Yes. Accident brought me where I overheard 
the whole of the villanous plan projected ; and by 
a communication with the Italian parties to the 
scheme, and a bribe superior to that which they 
had received, I substituted a real priest — was my- 
self a secret witness of the ceremony — and made 
an attestation to that effect; a copy of which, 
in my handwriting, convinced Leslie that he 
was actually her husband. But proceed — ” 

“ From the moment,” continued she, “ that I d’s- 
covered that Angelica was really his wife — and 
that I — was — Oh God ! — nothing but a dishonored 
woman, I determined never to see him more — yet 
— dare I confess it ] — this rebel heart still continued 
to linger around the recollection of what I had pic- 
tured him to be, and I had daily and hourly strug- 
gles to reduce it to the performance of its duty — a 
duty rendered still more difficult by the persecutions 
of Leslie.” Whenever she mentioned the name, 
her voice faltered still more. “ Subsequent know- 
ledge of him, however, rendered this duty easy; 
but I wdll not recur to this — I pity and forgive- s:ra 
— and now, even in my last hour, pray for him, and 
entreat his Maker to give him repentance while it 
is yet time. But he used me cruelly — broke the 
heart which doated on him.” Here she struggled 
with her feelings. “ But why should I complain ? 
— mine was not the only heart he has broken. — 
But again — I forgive and pray for him. When I 
found the parents of the unhappy Angelica poor 
and wretched, I could not help feeling that, per- 
haps, I had been accessary to the fate of their 
daughter. They did not know me — they know mo 
not as yet, excepting as a betrayed and deserted 
woman ; and the similarity of my fate to that of 


104 


THE R0U£. 


their daughter has created an interest in them 
which has made them second parents to me, as I 
have tried to prove a second daughter to them. I 
persuaded them to leave their native village, which 
is in a distant part of Italy, to reside with me here; 
and I have derived my only pleasure, the last three 
years, in contributing to their comforts. I have 
provided for them at my death. My great aim has 
been to bring my heart and mind into a proper 
frame to meet the moment now so near — so very 
near at hand — and I have done it. Oh ! sir, 
the death-blow was given then — then !” and she 
spoke with more energy. ** But the heart is 
strong — and long — long breaking — though it will 
break at last.” She breathed with difficulty. Clif- 
ton could not speak; the child was all unconscious, 
“ And on its dying mother smiled.” 

Her respiration became more difficult ; he would 
have summoned the attendants, but she restrained 
him, and pointed to the window — faintly articu- 
lated “ Air — air — to breathe.” 

Clifton opened, it, and the pure air rushed in, 
perfumed with the flowers over which it had passed. 
Its freshness seemed to revive her; she half rose 
from the pillow, and gazed through the open win- 
dow. The sun was setting in large floods of crim- 
son and gold directly opposite to the house ; the 
wide landscape, with its trees, and fields, and rivers, 
seemed to glow with its setting beams ; the ‘distant 
Trebia glittered as it wound through the plains, 
and all the windows of the villas, and churches, 
and convents, seemed to glance reflected fire. 

“ It is a beautiful world,” she said, is it not ? 
Why are there those who spoil it 1 Hark ! — 
hark ! — surely I am dying, and I hear the strains 
that welcome me to heaven!” Clifton thought 
her senses w'andered. 

At ihis moment the distant peal of an organ was 
heard, and the voices of the nuns in the neighbor- 
ing convent arose in all the harmony of the even- 
ing vespers; as the sound reached the vale, it was 
increased by the voice of the villagers, who, from 
windows and doors, joined in the devotion of the 
“ rcsario.” 

Mellowed by distance, it did indeed seem the 
music of another sphere. Agnes looked upwards, 
as though she expected to see some unearthly 
musicians. 

“ My mother seems to call me,” she faintly mur- 
mured. Her arms then attempted to embrace her 
child, who had now fallen asleep. She gazed at 
the landscape — but her eye grew gradually glazed 
and unconscious — the sun threw its last beam of 
day on her pallid countenance — the strains died 
away in gentle murmurs — and as the last sounds 
floated in the air, a slight convulsion was percep- 
tible on the lips; and the instant after she 
tell back on her pillow and breathed her last. 

Clifton sunk on his knees, and burying his face 
in the drapery, remained absorbed in his grief, un- 
able to summon any of the household to say that 
eke was gone. 

white in her sonl to fill a throne 

Of innooency and sanctity in heaven. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


The moment that the spirit of Agnes had de- 
parted, and that Walmer felt, from the chilly inam 
mation of the hand he held, that the vital spark 
had really fled, a sigh of unutterable agony burst 
from his heart. He seemed again to lose the Ag- 
nes, the beloved of his youth ; he seemed again 
to feel all those miseries which that loss had occa- 
sioned him. 

With these feelings he quitted the house of 
death, and pursued his course to the inn. Every 
thing was still and quiet without, and the clear 
blue sky, with its bright calm moon, and its myriad 
of stars, tranquillised his mind. 

On his arrival, he found the court-yard of tho 
little alberga filled with horses and servants Two 
carriages were drawn up at the door; and from his 
room, through the thin partition which divided the 
apartments of the little inn, he heard the sobs of a 
female. They suddenly increased till they became 
almost hysterical, and faltering accents, which be- 
spoke acute distress, were uttered in a soft Italian 
voice, and were soothed by that of a man who 
spoke the language with a foreign accent. The 
latter voice breathed an English curse or two 
at the delay of the horses. The female, by her 
tone of supplication, seemed to be pleading, but it 
was all uttered so softly, that Walmer could not 
catch the words. Sometimes reproaches were ut- 
tered, and attempted to be calmed by tenderness; 
then a flood of tears altogether stopped every sound 
but those of sighs, which seemed to come from a 
bursting heart. These were succeeded by agonising 
expressions of fear and anxious entreaty to return, 
which seemed to create an impatience almost arising 
to an expression of temper on the part of her com- 
panion, which again caused fresh floods of tears ; 
and these were again soothed by a promise on the 
part of the other that they should return instantly, 
and an assurance that they should still be in time. 
Hurried and impatient steps were heard across the 
apartment, and the quick opening and shutting of 
the door and window, as the traveller called out his 
hurried inquiries after horses, in Italian, French, 
and English, betrayed the anxiety, at least, of one 
of the parties to proceed. Then again all was 
silent, save the convulsive sobs of the female, who 
frequently exclaimed that she was an unhappy and 
lost wretch. Then a slight struggle, and a burn- 
ing kiss, and smothered emotions of mingled love 
and anger — struggles, as it appeared to Walmer, 
between temptation and virtue. Interrupted and 
agitated as the conversation was, he thought that 
he could discover that the parties were a runaway 
wife and her paramour, and that the deluded lady 
had already repented her rash step, and wmuid i 
return if her seducer would permit her. j 

This idea was confirmed as the conversation be- : 
came more collected, and consequently more au- 
dible. Walmer now collected from her reproaclies, ( 
that she had been betrayed by some perfidy into 




THE ROUE 


105 


rhe present step involuntarily. These were re- 
plied to by soothings — by oaths — by protestations 
of fidelity. By “ words which burn/’ and which 
seemed to be but too welcome, and to make but 
too deep an impression upon the hearer. Her sighs 
became less frequent and softer. Her reproaches 
were uttered in a more tender accent. She seemed 
upon the point of relenting, and Walmer had al- 
most determined to rush into the presence of the 
parties to sustain her sinking virtue, and offer her 
a protector back to the husband and the home 
which she had quitted, when his steps were 
arrested, and the whole current of his blood turned, 
by the exclamation of “ O Signor Leslie !” which 
burst for the first time from the lips of the 
female. 

As though the eye of the basilisk had fallen upon 
him — as though the finger which petrified Niobe 
had touched him, Walmer was struck motionless. 
He scarcely believed his ears, and watched with 
breathless suspense for some succeeding sound, 
which should confirm or annihilate his suspicion 
that he was indeed under the same roof with him 
wjiom he had, within an hour, so bitterly cursed — 
with him whose work of cruelty he had, within an 
hour, seen accomplished — with him who had des- 
troyed the peace of mind, and the life of the 
favorite child of Agnes Dornton. 

The name had been uttered in a half tone 
of tenderness — in a tone in which softness and 
yielding were mingled with reproach ; and a silence 
of some minutes succeeded, till, as it seemed with 
exertion, the voice again exclaimed — “ Mai — Mai ! 
Signor Leslie.” 

Walmer’s determination was speedily concluded. 
He seized a pen — wrote a few hurried lines, and 
hastened from his apartment, to despatch it to him 
to whom it was addressed. 

In the mean time, Leslie — for it was indeed 
Leslie, was using the whole of his rhetoric to allay 
the fears of his companion — to soothe her into 
quietude, and to prevent her from returning, which 
^e had most vehemently petitioned to do. 

He was reclined on a fauteuily with his arms 
round her waist. She was half upon her knees, as 
though she had even used that humble position to 
entreat that he would spare her. Her dark hair 
had escaped from her travelling hat — her eyes 
were suffused with tears — her bosom palpitated — 
and she still entreated, though with less energy, 
that he would be generous and save her, while she 
might still return with safety and with honor. 
But Leslie was too much accustomed to sighs and 
tears, to be moved from his purpose ; and he had 
too light an idea of woman’s repentance, and more 
particularly an Italian woman’s, to anticipate all 
the horrors which this unfortunate lady pictured to 
herself. 

He drank up her tears with burning kisses, 
every one of which only added strength to his 
determination, and breathed promises of fidelity — 
of love — of pleasure — in return for her sighs. He 
pictured in glowing terms the life of love they 
might lead — the delights of gratified passion — the 
days and years of biiss that awaited them — and 
found that remorse was giving way to brighter 
anticipations, when La Tour entered the apartment 
with a letter. 

“ Qu’est que c’est ]” 


Un billet, monsieur.” 

“ De qui I” 

“ D’un etranger — d’un monsieur Anglais.” 

Qui me connoit 1” 

“ Oui, monsieur.” 

Et tu, maraud — tu lui as dit mon noml” 

“Non, monsieur. II me I’a dit lui-meme. 
me disait qu’il etoit inutile de le nier — qu’il savait 
bian que monsieur etoit ” 

“ Silence ! — donnez. — Ha ! — what do I see — the 
handwriting — the handwriting — still w^et too — still 

freshly written ” and all languages but his own 

fled from his memory and his power, in his aston- 
ishment at again seeing that handwriting which had 
so often crossed him in his career, and at the know- 
ledge that the mysterious penman was so close at 
hand. 

He tore open the letter, heedless of the anxious 
glance of his companion. It simply said — “An 
English woman requires the attendance of Sir Ro- 
bert Leslie ; a countryman awaits him at the garden 
gate, to conduct him where his presence is requir- 
ed. It will be time enough to proceed in his pre- 
sent pursuit when the scene is past — which he must 
witness. — Leslie must not fail, and he must come 
alone.” 

Recollections of assassination came over his mind 
as he perused the billet. But these were quickly 
banished from his fearless mind — and all was ab- 
sorbed in the intense curiosity to discover the mys- 
terious correspondent, and in the desire of punishing 
his frequent interference with his schemes. 

“ Dites que je viens lui joindre.” 

“ Monsieur, il est parti.” 

“Eh bien, je pars aussi — Restez-vous ici — Que 
les chevaux soient prets a mon re tour.” Then 
turning to the trembling lady, who had sat silently 
gazing at this inexplicable scene, he soothed her ter- 
ror — told her it was but a civility required of him 
by a compatriot, which would be paid in a few mi- 
nutes — that he should return before the horses were 
ready; consigned her to La Tour’s especial care, 
with directions not to permit her to escape — seized 
a small dress sword which lay loosely among the 
baggage that strewed the floor ; and hastily throw- 
ing his travelling cloak round him, proceeded to the 
garden gate. 

Arrived at the spot, he looked eagerly around, but 
could see nobody; and he was almost beginning to 
imagine that he had been deceived, when he started 
at suddenly beholding a tall figure close at his side, 
wrapped up in a long cloak, and pointing to a path 
that led a little to the right up the mountain, in the 
direction of some villas, whose windows glittered 
like plates of silver in the white light of the 
moon. 

Leslie receded, and cast an inquiring look at his 
conductor — hesitated for a moment — then address- 
ing himself to the adventure — would have demand- 
ed who and what were the persons that required 
his attendance in this imperious manner. 

Walmer waved his hand in silence — and so com 
manding was his action that Leslie involuntarily 
obeyed — and followed his long and rapid strides 
thPiiugh the serpentine path that presented itself. 

Walmer’s figure was remarkably tall, and look- 
ed of a still greater height from the drapery of the 
cloak in which it was enveloped. Leslie could catch 
no glimpse of his features; but as he followed his 


106 


THE ROUfi. 


(jark figure — rendered still more dark by its contrast 
T^’ith the moonlight, and when it gained much in 
advance of him, appearing relieved only by the clear 
though deep-blue sky, he almost fancied it was some 
su’pernatural being — some Mephistophiles leading 
him to his fate — his mind recurred too to all the 
mysterious warnings that Agnes had received, in 
tile same handwriting — to the mysterious interfer- 
ence in the affair with Angelica — and a shudder- 
ing crept through his frame in spite of himself and 
in spite of that daring audacity which was one of 
his most conspicuous characteristics. 

Everything around was so silent, that every foot- 
step of the stranger that fell upon the pathway al- 
most produced an echo, and was the only sound 
that met his ear, except his own hard breathing. 
The stranger proceeded ; they left two or three small 
cottages to the left, and approached one in which a 
light still burned. At the entrance wicket Wal- 
mer stopped, and turning round, appeared like a 
being of superior power waiting for his victim. 
Here Leslie caught a slight glimpse of his counten- 
ance as the moon fell upon it ; but he saw nothing 
distinctly, except the flash of a dark eye that seem- 
ed to glance at him with indignation. 

This was sufficient to brace every nerve ; it 
roused his courage into action ; and he followed 
.hrough the wicket and up the covered walk with 
a step almost as proud and firm as that of his con- 
ductor. 

Here the overhanging branches nearly obscured 
them from the light of the moon, and the entrance 
seemed to open almost magically to the word of 
Walmer. He beckoned Leslie to enter. They 
passed through the anti-chamber, then the draw- 
ing room, at the farther end of which a light was 
geen through the door. A faint smell, as of faded 
flowers, pervaded these apartments, and for a mo- 
ment Leslie felt their sickening influence ; but the 
tread of his conductor, as it now fell heavily on 
the boarded floor, recalled his attention. 

At the door of the inner apartment Walmer 
stopped, and holding it a moment in his hand, he 
turned suddenly round, and in a deep, solemn voice, 
he uttered — “ Prepare !” 

“ For what said the dauntless Leslie. 

“ For that which, if thou hast a human heart, 
will break it. For that which, if thou hast one 
grain of the common feelings of humanity, will 
wring them to agony ! For that which, if thou 
^‘ast one particle of conscience, will touch it with 
never dying remorse 

Leslie was thunderstruck — he knew not what to 
expect — his mind wandered through the labyrinths 
of his memory of the past and anticipations of the 
future, to divine what was to come : yet he was 
fijariess. 

“ Lead on — I am prepared for any thing.^^ 

“ Enter !’^ exclaimed Walmer, in a voice of 
thunder; “enter, and behold thy work!” 

He threw open the door, and Leslie beheld a 
couch, with tapers placed at its head and feet. The 
couch was covered with a sheet, on which were 
strewn sprigs of rosemary and yew. .Just over it, 
at the head, was a large picture, covered with a 
green curtain. By its side was a small desk, on 
which was a missal and a rosary, as though some 
one had been recently praying there. The window, 
which reached to the ground, was nartly open, so 


that the flames of the tapers flickered in the night 
breeze, and rendered the light still more doubtful, 
The forms which the sheet that covered the couch 
presented, were too defined not to convey at once 
to the eye that a corpse was concealed beneath 
it. 

Leslie started — he hesitated. Walmer advanced 
to the couch, and, laying his hand upon the sheet, 
slowly and solemnly exclaimed, “ Approach, and 
contemplate thy work !” Perceiving his hesitation, 

“ Ha ! dost fear the effects of crime, and yet not 
fear to commit it 1” 

The word fear acted like electricity upon the 
nerves of Leslie ; he approached firmly ; Walmer 
threw off the covering suddenly, and Leslie shrunk 
back shuddering, and pale, and trembling, as the 
hollow and sunken features, and thin and attenu- 
ated form of Agnes met his view ; a convulsive 
shudder crept through his whole frame ; his hair 
had the sensation of bristling upon his head, and 
every nerve seemed to vibrate to some unpleasant, 
some unnatural touch. 

He wished to withdraw his eyes, but could n^ 
His feet seemed the only steady part of his whole 
frame; and they felt rooted to the floor. — Nature 
burst forth in huge drops of perspiration, which 
rolled down his forehead; his hand involuntarily 
stretched itself out, as though it would have some 
palpable proof of the reality of the object before 
him — but shrunk back before it came in contact 
with the corpse. 

At length, and as if with a powerful effort, he 
closed his eyes ; but they were in an instant again 
wide open, and again fixed upon the object, which 
seemed to fascinate their glance. 

Another effort enabled him to turn them for a 
moment from the dead form of Agnes to the living 
one of his conductor, which seemed to tower into 
supernatural proportions as he contemplated with 
his keen, dark, yet solemn eye, the agitation of 
Leslie from the other side of the couch, from 
which he pointed to the corpse. 

The present scene, and the events of the even- 
ing, had wrought up the mind of Walmer to a 
species of unnatural excitement, and he witnessed 
the agony of Leslie with a feeling bordering on 
delight. 

“ Ha ! ha ! and thou canst feel 1 Glad am I 
that all is not dead within thee, for then this 
scene will wring thy soul. Look ! look ! ! look ! ! !” 
and his voice rose, as he repeated the word, into a 
tone of fierceness — “ look at all that was once so 
lovely ; look at all that was once so gay, so happy, 
and so innocent. But innocent she was to the 
last; even thy demoniac power could not blast her 
innocence. But thou destroyed her happiness; ; 
you broke her heart. The flowers of her existence i 
were withered under thy pestilential influence ; 
her youth, her loveliness, her goodness, her life, 
were sacrificed to thine accursed selfishness. She 
was kind and confiding, and you betrayed her. 
You found her beaming w'ith life, gaycty, anima-i 
tion, and talent; and you leave her a senseless|| 
corpse, cut off in the commencement of her career.* 
Mark these hollow, sunken cheeks, and recollectjj 
the bloom thou foundst upon them. Mark these 
death-like, ghastly eyes, and remember the glances ; 
of intelligence with which they beamed Look at I 
this attenuated form, worn out with suffering, troiu 


THE ROUfi. 


107 




which she had no ref age but the grave, and damn 
thyself with the thought that it is thine accursed 
work. Oh, God of heaven !” and he suddenly 
lifted up his hands in the action of prayer — how 
inscrutable are thy ways ! that such a man — such 
a monster — should be permitted still to crawl upon 
thy earth to blast the fairest of thy creatures! 
Keep dowm, I beseech thee, this rebellious heart, 
that would engender the thoughts adverse to thy 
justice and to thy wisdom, when I see guilt stand- 
ing oofor^ me in the full enjoyment of health and 
strength, and means to accomplish more crime — 
and innocence blighted in its bud, a pale corpse, 
lifeles* in the very presence of the destroyer. Sir 
Robert Leslie ! for that was the name under which 
this crime was committed, and no title can ennoble 
it and he turned his eyes from heaven and fixed 
them full upon the guilty being before him, who 
seemed struck speechless with astonishment and 
horror. “Sir Robert Leslie’” and his voice was 
raised to an almost unnatural pitch, when the 
inner door of the apartment was burst open, and 
the aged couple rushed into the room, exclaiming 
in Italian — 

“ Leslie ! who names Leslie 1 who calls upon 
that accursed name — the be'.rayer of our only hope 
— the destroyer of our only child !” 

Walmer, in the absorbing feelings which had 
been excited by Agnes, had forgotten every thing 
else. 

Leslie gazed upon the aged pair without recog- 
nition. They looked at him with loathing and hor- 
ror, and again renewed their exclamations and re- 
proaches, 

“ Who, and w'hat are you,” hoarsely murmured 
licslie, “ that you bellow your curses in my ear* 
What have I done to you 1 Who have I betrayed 
— what have I destroyed of yours V* 

Hurried footsteps were heard in the garden ; they 
approached the house, — suddenly, the window was 
pushed open, and a female, whose dishevelled hair 
and disordered dress could not conceal her beauty, 
entered the room and rushed towards Leslie, scream- 
ing, in Italian, “ Oh, save me, save me ! He is here 
— he is come ! — he follows me — he will not believe 
me innocent!” 

“ Who!” demanded Leslie, roused to animation 
by her appearance. 

“ My husband — your friend — Villars ! ! Save 
me! Explain that I am not the guilty being he 
thinks me !” she frantically exclaimed — “ thou 
knowest that I am not !” 

Leslie started — “ Ha ! is it so T — is he here 

“ I will save you,” uttered Walmer, in a voice 
of thunder — “save you from the precipice upon 
which you stand — save you from the demon who 
has plotted your destruction. Look here !” — and he 
almost dragged her to the couch — “look here ! this 
is one of his victims ! Look upon it, and trem- 
ble ! For such will you soon be if you believe in 
him !” 

8he cast one hurried glance upon the corpse, 
uttered a piercing scream, and fainted in Walmer’s 
arms. 

Leslie looked for a moment upon the whole 
group, and rushed through the window into the gar- 
den, to the encounter which he knew awaited him 
with his betrayed friend, Frederick Villars. 


CHAPTER XL. 

Leslie rushed through the casement that had 
been left open by the last unexpectant visitant, and 
dashing over plants and flowers, leaped the wicket 
into the road. The balmy freshness of the night- 
breeze a little relieved the heat of his brain ; but 
still he rushed on for a few minutes like the chafed 
lion escaped from the toils of the hunter, but sfill 
smarting under his wounds. Stung almost to mad- 
ness by the severity of the lesson he had received, 
and struggling against the remorse which had for 
a moment taken possession of his heart; and inflict- 
ed a pang which he had never felt before, he yet 
could not conquer his desire of vengeance on that 
being who had so frequently crossed his will, and 
who had now for the first time been seen and iden- 
tified ; and he was angry with himself that he had 
permitted the superiority of virtue, and the over- 
whelming and imposing manners of the stranger, to 
have had such power over him. 

The sight of Villars turned the agitation of Les- 
lie in a moment into his usual sang-froid. 

“Ha, Fred! Well met — the quickest work is 
the Desi. Between friends the less ceremony the 
better. I know what I owe thee; and you know I 
am ever found willing to pay every debt I owe in 
the world, whether their payment draw upon my 
fortune or my life.” 

“I know, Leslie, that thou art a faithless scoun- 
drel — I know, Leslie, that there is no tie, however 
sacred, that will bind thee; that friendship, honor, 
virtue, all are sacrificed by the hellish selfishness of 
thy predominant passion.” 

“ Hard words, Fred — hard words — friendship ! 
why true, we have been friends ; but as to honor 
and virtue, dost think these words sound better 
from your lips than from mine 1” 

“ This is trifling, sir — I know thee.” 

“ Well, Fred, and you knew me before. You 
have known me all my life, from infancy, when we 
were whipped by the same nurse ; in our boyhood, 
when we played the same games ; in our manhood, 
when we have fought, drank, and intrigued toge- 
ther ; aye, Fred, to this moment, when we stand 
determined to cut each other’s throats, or blow out 
each other’s brains — which is it to be ! the choice 
is thine.” 

“ I have my pistols with me ; you are as much 
accustomed to them as I am.” 

“ True, Fred, those same pistols have served my 
turn before this, when you were my second instead 
of my adversary. They will be the fit, though not 
the silent witnesses of our meeting ; and here comes 
La Tour, who shall evidence our fair play, should 
any awkward occurrence terminate our interview ; 

for I can never forget that C was hanged 

for shooting his man without a witness.” 

Leslie’s apparent coolness stung Villars to the 
quick ; and boiling with rage, he was giving vent 
to a tissue of execrations, W'hen he was interrupted 
by Leslie, w'ho stopped him by saying — 

“ Tush — tush, Fred, this is unmanly. Thy pis- 
tols will do quite as much execution without all 
these hard words. Thy passion, man, will never 
give thy bullet a truer aim, or add one atom of 


108 


THE R0U£. 


weight to the lead of which it is composed. We 
have lived as friends; let us part like gentle- 
men.” 

The calm face and easy attitude of Leslie strong- 
ly contrasted with the flushed and angry counte- 
tenance, and energetic position which the roused 
passion of Villars presented. His hands were ex- 
tended, in the act of offering one of the pistols to 
Leslie: while the other was grasped with a trem- 
bling hand, that endangered the discharge of one 
of Wogden’e hair triggers. 

“ Take the pistol — take the pistol !” exclaimed, 
or rather bellowed, Villars ; “ lest I do myself sum- 
mary justice, and inflict my vengeance without 
giving you your gentlemanly chance of escape. 
Take it. They are equally good. You know 
there is no choice between them, and I do not 
offer it. 

“ Why Fred, you are mad ; what, here in the 
high road, within pistol shot of the village ! w'hy, 
man, you would wake the whole neighborhood, 

and perhaps make discoveries. But I will 

not jest. La Tour, take the pistols from Mr. Vil- 
lars ; follow us, and be silent.” 

He led the way into a grove on his left, and 
in a moment they were enveloped in the dark 
shade of the trees. The ground was measured 
by La Tour, and the two friends took their 
places. 

The eyes of both parties were fixed on La 
Tour. The handkerchief dropped. The loud 
report broke upon the stillness of the night — and 
was repeated by a hundred echoes. 

La Tour had closed his eyes when he gave the 
signal. He reopened them the moment he heard 
the discharge, and a rush of pleasure came over his 
heart as he saw both the parties standing in the 
same position. The hand of Villars was extended 
with his pistol pointed at Leslie, whose arm hung by 
his side, still holding the weapon. 

This relief to the excited feelings of La Tour 
W’as, however, but momentary, as Leslie evidently 
showed a difflciilty in keeping his position. The 
pistol dropped from his relaxed hold — he staggered 
a pace or two backwards, and fell to the ground. 

The moment Villars saw him fall he dashed his 
pistol to the earth, and rushed to the spot. La Tour 
was on his knees at his master’s head an instant 
after. Leslie lay extended at full length. The 
contortions of his body showed the agonies which 
he suffered, and the compression of his lips, one of 
which he held tightly between his teeth, displayed 
the struggle he was making against the influence 
of pain. His eyes were closed, his hands clenched, 
and large drops of perspiration hung upon his fore- 
head. 

As Villars gazed upon his pale face, old associa- 
tions revived in his bosom; his desire of revenge 
subsided — his passion melted into softness — remorse 
stole into his heart, for the sacrifice which his ho- 
nor had required, and he called in a voice almost 
amounting to agony upon Leslie. 

“ Leslie — Leslie — Leslie !” and he raising his 
voice with each repetition of the name, “ Leslie — 
my friend — Leslie ” 

^ Lrelie opened his eyes : he still struggled with 
hit pain ; and his spirit — his indomitable spirit 
Lt a caoment mastered it. « Fred — you need not 


— call so loud. — My — my — spirit — or whatever it 
is that is — to go from me — has not gone so far on 
its way — yet — but that it hears thee.” 

He sunk back nearly exhausted, and La Tour 
tore his own shirt sleeve off to replace the piece of 
linen that had been first applied, and which was 
now completely saturated with blood. 

Villars could not speak ; he held his hand, and 
returned its feeble pressure. 

Leslie again opened his eyes; he fixed them upon 
the countenance of Villars; he there read the re- 
gained ascendancy over his old associate; and that 
vanity which made him glory in leading and mis- 
leading all the spirits by whom he was surrounded, 
glimmered faintly in his heart, and even in this aw- 
ful moment, quivering between life and death, trem 
bling between time and eternity, he thought more 
about preserving the fearless and reckless gayety of 
his character, and of dying like Mercutio, than of 
summoning his fortitude from a better source and 
for a better purpose. 

“ Fred,” said he, “ I would ask your forgiveness ; 
but — but — I am not — I have not — ;” here he strug- 
gled stoutly with his agony, nor suffered it to be 
perceptible through any other means than the perspi- 
ration which hung upon his forehead, in large glo- 
bules; — “I would say — Fred, that your wife — ” 
Villars started from him at the word — “ is innocent 
— pure — for me ;” seeing Villars’ doubting counte- 
nance, “ it is true — true — I deceived her into her 
temporary absence.” 

“Oh, Leslie ! did I dare believe you; did I dare 
trust your words ! Upon all other points I know 
your lips never uttered a falsehood ; but upon these 
— ” he stopped. 

“ITou think — I never uttered — a truth — eh, 
Fredl” thus Leslie finished the sentence for him. 
“ How can I convince you] Shall I swear] alas! 
have we not so often laughed at everything sacred, 
that there is nothing left by which to swear, with 
any hope that you might think I respected it; but 
by the word of a Leslie, which was never forfeited 
to man ;” and his energy gave him a momentary 
strength, “ I assure you I speak that which is the 
fact.” 

He read in Villars’ eye his conviction of the 
truth of his statement; and again the lighter part 
of his character assumed his ascendancy, and pull- 
ing Villars towards him, he continued, “ Yes, Vil- 
lars, ’tis true — your wife has many — many — many 
good points;” he groaned — “and recollect — that 
nothing — is — quite perfect.” 

“We had better take some steps to remove 
him,” said Villars to La Tour, who thought, 
from his closed eyes, that he had fainted. 

“ No — no — not yet. It will produce fever > et 
me lie — the air revives me;” and he seemed tc de- 
rive fresh vigor from it. 

Villars still urged the immediate removal, or that 
La Tour should go for a surgeon : but Leslie 
would not permit either. He remarked, if any 
thing should happen while left alone with Villars, 
it might have an awkward appearance. On Villars 
still pressing, he said, “Come — come, Fred; it 
isn’t fair — one can’t argue so freely with a bullet in 
one’s body. Besides, you must fly ; you must go 
and protect your wife, and I have something more 
to say — all the rest I will write, for I fear you have 
given me plenty of leisure. Fred — Fred, it was 


THE *vOUl5. 


109 


vt)ur own fiiult. You — you put it into my head 
first — years ago — and my devil has been edging 
me on — ever since. Why 'did you trust me 1” 

“ Our long friendship !” exclaimed Villars. 

“ Friendship ! aye, Pylades and Orestes — Damon 
and Pythias. But, Fred, there was no Mistress 
Orestes; no Mistress Pythias — depend upon it.” 
Here he groaned in spite of his utmost etforts. — 
There were no pretty wives in the case — La 
Tour wiped his forehead ; — but yours is innocent.” 
A sudden thought seemed to come over him, and 
produced a smile. I say Fred,” he continued, 
you musn’t let Mrs. Villars think the worse of me 
for this circumstance; it musn’t be known, lest I 
should lose my character.” Again a groan forced 
its way into utterance. “And I say, Fred, pray 
apo — apologise for me to her — for — having given 
her so — much — trouble, and for having brought her 

so far — so far — for nothing !” and he fainted 

from excess of agony. 

Villars and La Tour took advantage of his in- 
sensibility, and binding his wound as well as cir- 
cumstances would permit, they bore him gently to 
tlie inn, from which Villars, convinced of tlie in- 
nocence of his wife, both by the confession of Les- 
lie and h‘=‘r own explanation, instantly departed, 
arranging with La Tour how he should commu- 
nicate the result of his master’s wound. 




CHAPTER XLI. 


THE COJICLUSION, 

The circumstances which had led to the rencon- 
tie detailed in the last chapter were simply these : 
From the time that Leslie ceased to persecute 
Agnes he had, in company with Villars, pursued 
his former career in different parts of the continent, 
until the latter had fallen desperately in love with 
a young Venitian lady, and finding it impossible to 
compass his ends by any other means, had actually 
married her. 

Called by his affairs so suddenly to Paris, that 
he could not take his wife, he placed her under the 
care of a part of her family in Italy, and pro- 
ceeded on his route, accompanied by Leslie. This 
made the separation easier, as he felt, in spite of all 
their friendship, that he could not trust Leslie in his 
absence. Unfortunately Leslie guessed this, and 
the demon which was always tempting him, sug- 
gested to his mind the idea of feigning illness at 
Geneva, for the purpose of making Villars proceed 
without him. This Villars was compelled to do, 
Leslie promising to follow immediately, or to 
wait his return there. The moment, however, that 
the whip of V^illars’ postilion was out of hearing. 
La Tour was summoned — and aw’ay posted Leslie 
back to his friend’s wife. The intimacy in which 
they had lived afforded him every opportunity — till 
what she had at first received as mere gallantries 
assumed a more serious meaning. Nothing, how- 
ever, had entered her mind and heart contrary lo 


the duty of a wife; and Leslie was obliged to have 
recourse to stratagem to get her into his power. 
He forged a letter from Villars, saying he was 
taken ill on his return homewards, and desiring his 
wife to come under the escort of Leslie to join 
him. His plan succeeded ; nor had she discovered 
the deception till their arrival at the little inn. Vil- 
lars in the mean time, finding Leslie had departed 
the moment he had quitted, suspecting his in- 
triguing disposition, pushed on with redoubled 
speed — arrived just after the flight of Leslie, im- 
mediately pursued him, and overtook him as before 
described. 

The symptoms by which the wound was accom- 
panied, induced his medical attendants to inform 
him of their dread of a fatal result. Leslie would 
not believe them, and attempted to ridicule them 
either as indulging groundless fears, or from their 
want of surgical skill. But the grave and pale face 
of La Tour soon convinced him that there was 
more in their fears than he dared acknowledge; 
and, for the first time, the idea of death came over 
him, accompanied by an impatience, and a dread 
which he was ashamed to show, and which he at- 
tempted to allay by his old habit of writing to 
Villars. Stretched on a couch, therefore, that com- 
manded a beautiful view of the surrounding coun- 
try from the window, for he would not go to 
bed ; at every interval of pain he wrote 
follows : — 

Leslie to Villars. (Written at intervals.) 

Fred — Fred, I always told you, you w'ere never 
a sure shot. I little thought though that I should 
have lived to prove it as I do now’. Why — why, 
would you never take my advice and practice 1 If 
you had done so — and I am to die — wby 3 ’ou 
might have done my business at once; arid not 
thus unskilfully have left me to linger, and die, as 
it were by inches. 

# ♦ * ♦ » 

That fellow, La Tour, has just been here, witti 
his pale face, and hollow sunken eye — the very re- 
verse of his former self; and what do you think he 
wanted] Faith, nothing ; but to persuade me to 
have a priest — a priest, forsooth — a physician for 
the soul — a rascal with an absolution to be pur- 
chased for a few pauls — a fellow professing to make 
up my long account; and to balance it with a wet 
wafer and Latin Sa/vo Domine. 

Fred, if there be an account to be rendered ! — 
Fred, if there be a day of judgment ! — Fred, if 
there be a hereafter! both you and I shall need a 
much longer time than these stupid doctors tell me 
is now allotted to me in this world to settle 
our accounts. Ages — ages, Fred, would scarcely 
be enough, if those which we have called pleasures 

are crimes; if those which we have But 

nonsense ; it is impossible, and I’ll not believe 
it ; and if I am to die, why, for my own comfort, I 
will die in the same sentiments that I have preached 
and lived. 

» « » * « 

I have been used to will, and to do, all my life; 
and never recollect saying I will, that I did not. 
Is then the power of volition to fail me only now, 
when I say I will live? No — no, life is strong 
within me. These physicians judge by their own 


110 


THE ROUE 


emaciated fragile bodies: they have no idea how 
much such a firm knit, athletic frame as mine can 
suffer; and yet the devils tell me I shall die: and 
as they pronounced the fiat, a legion of other 
devils seemed to enter, and riot in my mind ; and 
appeared to dance about me, laughing and chatter- 
ing, with a kind of hellish joy, as though it were 
to welcome me. Where — where — where ^ to wel- 
come me ? 

**%%%*** 

Die — impossible ! what I, with thousands of 
acres of fair, unencumbered estate 1 How many 
thousands are there, Fred? you know. But to 
my mind they, at this moment, appear, while I am, 
as it were, looking back at them, diminished to a 
speck. Though if they were but a speck, yet give 
me that speck, and let me cling to it so long as it 

is on this side of of what 1 I know not ; my 

pen wanders with my mind, and I know not where 
either of them are going to. But is it reasonable — 
is it just] — No — no, it cannot be, that I — in the 
possession of thousands of acres of land, forest, and 
water; of woodland and hill, and dale, and villages, 
and fields full of every living thing — should be 
reduced to a narrow s{)ot of six feet by two. That 
I, the owner of a princely mansion, with halls full 
of ancestors, and saloons full of costly furniture, 
should be shut up in a deal box, without even a 
hole to breathe through. Shut up close — faugh! 
how my soul sickens : soul — did I say soul ] And 
yet those very ancestors possessed the same estates, 


the same mansions; and they, and their all, are 
contained within these narrow limits. This comes 
like a damning fact — 

Fred, I have been trying to summon to my aid 
all the arguments of those philosophers in whom 
we used so much to delight, from the an cients down 
to Voltaire and Rousceau; and mind has clung with 
an indescribable tenacity to all those which were 
wont to be so convincing to us in the heyday of 
our enjoyments, and they are all fresh in my me- 
mory. I can repeat them every word ; but it is all 
in vain : all their strength, all their seeming truth, 
seems to elude my grasp, like the phantoms in my 
dream. As I catch at them, and attempt to hang 
my faith upon them, they all dissolve one after ano- 
ther into airy nothingness, and all at the word 
death. This magic word seems to dispel all those 
dreams of philosophy, upon the truth of which we 
so sincerely pinned our faith. — Death ! how I hate 
the word; and yet, if I look through my window, I 
see it written in gigantic characters on the broad 
blue sky. If I look round my chamber, I see it in- 
scribed like the fate of Belshazzar on the walls, and 
printed in the pale faces of my physicians and ser- 
vants. If I bury my face in my pillow, I see it 
there — death ! — death ! — death ! — nothing but 
DEATH written every where. Who would think 
that five simple letters could produce a word with 
so much terror in it ! Oh ! 


THE END, 


THE OXONIANS 


BEING A SEQUEL TO 


THE ROUE; OR, THE HAZARDS OF WOJIEK 


A DOMESTIC ROMANCE, PUBLISHED IN LONDON TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, 


AND GENERALLY ATTRIBUTED TO AND SAID BY ALL TO BE WRITTEN 


BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER., 

AUTHOR OF «THE ROUE/^ “ZANONI," ‘‘NIGHT AND MORNING/^ “LUCRB- 
TIA/^ “LAST OF THE BARONS/^ “EUGENE ARAM/^ “DEVEREUX/' 
“LAST DAYS OF POMPEII/^ “ALICE/^ “THE DISOWNED/^ 
“ERNEST MALTRAVERS/^ “RIENZI/^ “PAUL CLIF- 
FORD," “PELHAM," “HAROLD," ETC., ETC. 


COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED EDITION. 


pl)ila5elpl)ta: 

T. B. PETERSON, No. 102 CHESTNUT STREET. 




ft 



i 

■j 


OXONIANS. 


THE 


BEING A SEQUEL TO 

THE ROUE; OR, THE HAZARDS OF WOMEN. 

A DOMESTIC ROMANCE, 

FIRST PUBLISHED IN LONDON TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, 

AND GENERALLY ATTRIBUTED TO AND SAID BY ALL TO BE WRITTEN 

BY SIR EDWARD LYTTON BULWER. 


CHAPTER 1. 

QUITTING COLLEGE. 

Who wouldn’t send a son to college, 

To gather there all kinds of knowledge 
To stuff his head with Greek and Latin, 

Till the classics he is put in ; 

To hunt, to swear, to drink, to dine 
And fit him. for a grave divine — A non. 

« One, two, three — hip, hip, hip — hurrah ! hur- 
rah ! hurrah !’^ was vociferated by some six or se- 
ven voices in tones which iruicated very little 
sense as to the immediate occasion of their hilarity, 
or much knowledge of the toast which had called 
for the honor of the libation and the cheer which 
followed it. Hurrah ! was again hiccupped, once 
or twice, like shots fired after a volley by muskets 
which had hung fire through not being properly 
primed and loaded. 

These sounds issued from an apartment in one 
of the minor inns in Oxford, in which six or eight 
gentlemen Commoners were assembled for the pur- 
pose of taking leave of two of their companions 
who were on the point of quitting the University. 

These were the Honorable Henry Lascelles and 
Frank Hartley, cousins of nearly the same age 
and standing ; but as different in character as light 
from darkness ; the first delighting in slang, the 
latter in sentiment; the first all noise, bustle, and 
boisterous gayety, the best driver of a tandem, the 

U) 


boldest rider, and the most expert rower in Ox- 
ford ; the latter pursuing all these avocations in 
turn, according to the whim of the moment or the 
example of his companions, but mingling them 
withVeading; mixing up all the few realities of 
his gay life with the poetry of his own imagina- 
tion, and giving that dash of the romantic, which 
is the general accompaniment of an amiable mind, 
to any common circumstance that occurred. The 
above words, slang and sentiment, however, sum 
up the essential of their difference of character. 

The time was come when their education was 
considered as completed. Hartley had taken his 
first degrees. Lascelles had attemped no such 
thing. He could drive, ride, and box ; he knew 
the anatomy and points of a horse ; the odds on 
the Darby, and was already initiated into making 
a prospective book for the St. Leger. He was 
deep in the science of pugilism ; on shake-hand 
terms with its professors ; he could work the mail ; 
and he considered himself sufficiently knowing to 
enter the world, sit for his hereditary borough, 
legislate for the country, and spend his own in- 
come ! and having now neither parents nor guar- 
dians, but inheriting his fortune from an uncle, be- 
ing completely his own master, he determined to 
try the experiment: and who with such a mind, 
such accomplishments, and seven thousand a-year, 
would not have done the same] To celebrate 
their departure he had persuaded Hartley to join 
him in asking some fellow collegians to sup at the 
inn at which the mail stopped as it passed through 


JO 


THE OXONIANS. 


stopped till he had reached a small picket gate, 
which formed the entrance to a neat though 
humble mansion in the suburbs. He cast his eyes 
anxiously towards a window that looked into the 
front of the court, and in which the undisturbed 
and steady burning light, gleaming through the 
dimity curtain, plainly spoke that the inmate had 
retired to rest. 

This w'as the signal. All then was safe, and he 
took a circuitous route to arrive at the back of the 
house, w’here, climbing over the decayed wall, he 
found himself in one of those gardens with which 
our ancestors some centuries since always deco- 
rated their houses in towns and their environs, 
and silently stole up a green walk towards a 
summer-house in which he had spent many happy 
hours. 

The moon shone so brightly as to make him 
keep within the shadow of the trees, lest its light 
might betray him to me prying eye of sohie of 
the neighbors, whose windows overlooked the gar- 
den. 

His foot-fall was so silent on the greensward, 
that nothing hut the ear of anxious expectation 
could have distinguished it. But that ear was 
alive to the slightest noise, and had he come with 
the lightness and silence of a dy, Caroline Dormer 
would have distinguished his footstep; her heart 
would have felt his approach. 

Who is there that has ever waited for a beloved 
object — all anxiety — all expectation— -that has not 
felt the increased acuteness of the sense of hearing ; 
that has not experienced the painful sensation of 
misinterpreting every noise into the wished-for 
footstep, and the heart-sickening disappointment 
as the sound nlied away upon the ear, or as the 
proof of being mistaken has been unwillingly ad- 
mitted. 

In this state of suspense stood Caroline Dormer. 
Too anxious to sit patiently, she half leanded on 
a rustic seat in the front of the old fashioned sum- 
mer-house, with her head bent forward in the act 
of listening, and trembling at every falling leaf, 
starting at every breeze that weaved the boughs, 
and at every bird that winged its way near her, 
scarcely daring to breathe lest her respiration 
should prevent her hearing the very first symptom 
of his approach. Many times had she already 
been disappointed ; for, although Hartley was not 
five minutes after his time, Caroline seein.ed to 
have felt with Shakspeare, that “ He that will 
divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break 
but a j^t of the thousandth part of a minute in 
the aHnr of love, it may be said of him, that 
Cupid hath clapp’d him o’ the shoulder, but I 
warrant him heart-whole.” 

She now, however, palpably heard the noise he 
made in descending from the wall ; cautiously as 
he trod, her anxious ear yet caught the sound of 
his footsteps on the grass, and her heart beat more 
tranquilly; and who has not felt that delightful 
tranquillity of soul, which the certainty of the 
coming of a beloved object inspires? Another 
instant, and they were together, gazing on each 
other by the light of the moon, their hands clasp- 
ed, both feeling the pleasure of the meeting, yet 

both also feeling that they were about to part 

meeting only to bid farewell, and that, for the first 


time since Frank Hartley had told Caroline Dor- 
mer he loved her, and since she had felt how much 
she loved him. 

Caroline’s father was a curate of one of the 
churches in the neighborhood of Oxford, and hav- 
ing been under great obligations to Hartley’s father 
in early life, he had been engaged by him to super- 
intend the reading of his son during his stay at 
college. But as Hartley, was only studious by 
fits and starts, his attendance in the good curate’s 
study was rather irregular. Very much under the 
influence of his companions of the moment. Hart- 
ley was by turns a lounger on the pave of the 
Highstreet, an ardent follower of the barriers on 
some wretched hackney, or with some book-worm 
friend an industrious student of the classics. With 
such a malleable character it is not to be wondered 
at that Mr. Dormer found him but an inattentive 
scholar. Latterly, however, he had been very 
constant in his application. Every leisure moment 
was spent at the curate’s ; his love for classic lore 
seemed suddenly to have prodigiously increased; 
and he now frequently took his tea and spent 
whole evenings with the worthy curate, to the 
old gentleman’s great delight; nor did he, in the 
simplicity of his mind, observe that all this had 
occurred only since the arrival of his lovely daugh- 
ter ; or that he had invariably declined taking tea 
until he found it made by her, and the bread and 
butter handed by the sofi, xvhite hand of Caroline 
The good old man rejoiced in the improvemenl 
and industry of his pupil which he attributed en 
tirely to Lis own influence, and to the love he 
was gradually imbibing for the classics, and he 
wrote to his friend. Hartley’s father, accordingly. 

In the mean time Hartley was trying to read 
some sentiment corresponding with his own in 
Caroline’s eyes, while the old gentleman construed 
Homer ; and had much more inclination to explain 
some of the mysteries of Ovid to his daughter, 
than to attend to the explanations of some of the 
dry passages of Xenophon or Thucydides. 

The young people, however, soon understood 
each other much better than the good old curate 
understood his pupil. The living language of the 
eyes, the language universally understood, of the 
heart, soon superseded all the dead languages tc 
which he attempted to direct the attention of the 
student, and there wanted but the opportunity to 
bring about an edaircissenient. 

The old gentleman s propensity to napping over 
his pipe after tea soon afforded this opportunity. 
A glance of the eye, a touch of the hand, a few 
sentences murmured in an under tone, expressed 
Hartley’s sensations; while a blush, a sigh, a 
downcast look, and a tremor that thrilled and vi- 
brated through her whole frame, proved that he 
had found a lie^irt which sympathized with his own 
in the bosom of Caroline. Had Hartley been 
aware of the mischief he was doing, of the 
misery he was laying up for the poor girl, and 
could he have taken a complete view of the bear- 
ings of the whole case, of the inequality of their 
condition, of the impossibility of any happy and 
honorable conclusion of their loves, without the 
great displeasure of his parents, he would have 
paused ; and the innate goodness of his heart 
would have taught him to deny himself the in- 


THE OXONIANS. 


11 


dulgence of feelings, which, however delightful 
at the moment, could present no prospect but that 
of unhappiness. 

Thoughtless, however, of the future, the present 
was all that struck his imagination. He saw be- 
fore him a beautiful girl, in the first brilliancy of 
youth, with black eyes, raven tresses, and a com- 
plexion in which her eloquent blood spoke the 
feelings of her heart. He saw a finely rounded 
form, a heaving bosom, and a trembling ' hand ; 
and he knew that the bosom heaved, the heart beat, 
and the hand trembled for him. It was not in 
human nature to resist this, at least in the human 
nature of twenty-two. It requires time, and ex- 
perience, and disappointment, and the sight and 
feeling of misery, to lower the blood, and to quell 
the passions, and give reflection fair play, and 
when has this ever happened at twenty-two 1 How 
seldom at double that age ! So Hartley went on 
and on, indulging his feelings, without permitting 
judgment or reason to give them the va 

la ’’ that might have stopped them in their pro- 
gress. 

In the first instance, Caroline, young as she was, 
had some thoughts of the difference of their rank, 
and of the inequality of their circumstances; and 
in the absence of her lover these thoughts would 
come on her with a sickening sensation that made 
her heart sink within her; and she determined to 
act differently, and not to be present at Hartley’s 
visits. But he came, and she was still there; and 
as he never seemed to feel this difference, and as 
her own affection increased, she too forgot it, and 
gave herself up to all the dear delirium of a first 
love ; a love as pure as could glow in the bosom of 
a virtuous girl of eighteen without any knowledge 
of the world, and as ardent as could be felt by a 
person who thought its object perfection, and who 
had certainly never seen anything superior to him 
for whom those feelings were excited. 

Thus wrapped up in each other, neither of them 
had yet looked beyond the present moment. What 
they were to do had never entered the thoughts of 
either of them. If the future would intrude on the 
mind of Hartley, he banished the thought it suggest- 
ed, as an unwelcome guest, by the enjoyment of the 
moment, an enjoyment as pure and innocent as that of 
Caroline herself ; for no sentiment that could stain 
the purity of her honor, had ever entered his ima- 
gination. All they seemed determined to do was 
to love, (that was enough for the present,) and to 
leave the rest to time and circumstances. 

Thus months rolled on; Caroline’s heart became 
more and more absorbed in her feelings, and Hart- 
ley was as much devoted as ever, till the commands 
of his father that he should quit college, and pass 
a winter in London, and then travel preparatory to 
his entering on the course of public life for which he 
was intended, as the representative of an ancient 
and respectable house, and as one who might some 
day inherit the title to which his father was pre- 
sumptive heir, and which was now borne by a wi- 
dowed Lord who had resided abroad for many 
years. 

This letter awoke them both from their dream of 
bliss. In Caroline’s agony Hartley began to per- 
ceive some of the mischief of which he had inad- 
vertently been guilty, and in his own anticipation 
of parting he also felt the future pangs he had laid 


up for his own heart. He now took his conduct 
severely to task, and questioned himself as to hi» 
intentions ; but when he came to analyse his own 
mind he found that he had formed none. If there 
was no definite determination to make Caroline his 
wife, there was certainly not even the remotest 
thought of making her his mistress ; and when, as 
he saw the difficulty of an honorable conclusion to 
his attachment in the elaborately detailed claim of 
his rank and family, set forth in his father’s letter, 
this thought did pass across his mind like a cloud 
upon the purity of his passion; it was banished 
with horror, as his imagination pictured the grey 
hairs of the good old curate descending to the grave 
with sorrow and disgrace, and the now cheerful 
face of Caroline shrinking from the scornful finger 
of a pitiless world, as one of the cast-out of her 
sex. 

Whether as wife or mistress, therefore, equal 
difficulties seemed to present themselves, and he 
still determined to go on as he had done, and leave 
things to time and circumstances, as heretofore. 

He therefore encouraged Caroline with renewed 
assurances of his love, and with promises of un- 
changeable fidelity ; and she buoyed herself up with 
the hope that, being the daughter of a gentleman, 
time would induce the consent of his parents to 
their union; many more unlikely things had hap- 
pened, many more unequal matches were taking 
place every day, and why should not this be the 
case in her instance, as well as in that of others. 

These ideas and hopes tranquillized her mind, 
and she thought of nothing but her love, and the 
pain of parting from her lover. 

This was the first assignation they had ever 
made. The many opportunities which the habits 
of the good curate afforded them in his study, in 
the garden, and in the walks, had precluded the 
painful necessity of making absolute appointments, 
and the delicacy of Caroline’s mind would instinc- 
tively have shrunk from such an idea. None of 
the usual opportunities, however, were sufficient 
for either of them at a parting like this. The pres- 
sure of the hand, warm as it was, the glance, all 
speaking of the feelings within, where nothing 
when given and exchanged in the presence of a 
third person. Both their hearts longed for some- 
thing more, and it was agreed that Caroline should 
be in the summer-house at eleven, by which time 
her father and her old housekeeper, were generally 
asleep. 

Those who have felt the pangs of separating from 
a beloved object, and know how much those pangs 
are assuaged by a free interchange of affectionate 
assurances ; and those also who know the comfort 
which is derived during the* absence from the recol- 
lection of such an interview, will readily find an 
apology for Caroline ; and let those who are more 
rigid, recollect that she was only eighteen, in love 
for the first time, not as young ladies love general- 
ly, but with her whole soul ; that she was going to 
part from the object of this love, and, above all 
that she had the most implicit confidence in hei 
lover. Nor was her confidence misplaced ; for, in 
asking this interview. Hartley’s mind was as free 
from guile as her own in granting it. 

When they met, she was pale and trembling, an 
innate sense of doing something that was not quit# 
right, mingled with the pain of separation ; this on# 


12 


THE OXONIANS. 


idea, however, soon absorbed every other, and her 
tears flowed fast as she recollected how long it 
might be ere they met again. Overcome by her 
sorrow, all caution on the part of Hartley gave way, 
and he poured forth his tale of tenderness in her 
ear, accompanied by such protestations of fidelity, 
and with so many insinuations that the indulgent 
love of his parents would overlook every obstacle 
to their union when they found how much his hap- 
piness depended upon it, that the poor believing 
girl was comforted, smiled through her tears at the 
prospect which his sanguine anticipations pictured, 
and mingled her vows with his own. 

Who in the midst of such an interview has ever 
counted minutes ] What lover ever thinks of the 
lapse of time 1 It was thus with Caroline and 
Hartley; they talked on and on, repeating the 
same thing over and over again without tiring of 
the eternal theme, till the first streaks of the morn- 
ing surprised them. The lovers would scarcely be- 
lieve their eyes as the dawning light stole through 
the leaves which clustered, even at this early period 
of the year, over the windows of the summer- 
house. 

A hurried repetition of the method of their cor- 
respondence, a kiss half snatched half granted, a 
warm pressure of the hand, and Hartley leaped 
over the wall, while Caroline stole silently and sor- 
rowfully to her apartment. 



CHAPTER III. 

aUITTING HOME. 

It was on a beautiful morning in the spring of 
the same year, that Emily Hartley awoke from a 
thousand of those delicious dreams which render 
the state of the innocent even more delightful than 
its calm repose. Her wandering imagination had 
embodied all her waking thoughts; had gone 
back to the past, and combined the present with 
the future ; picturing all the delightful anticipa- 
tions which the young, innocent, and inexpe- 
rienced indulge in the views they take of life, 
whether in their waking fancies or their sleeping 
dreams. 

As her eyes gradually opened upon the bright 
and cheerful gleam which the sun shot into her 
apartment, she collected her scattered thoughts, 
recovered from the delicious illusion of her “ golden 
dreams,’’ and recollected that it was the morning 
on which she was to set off on her first visit to 
London. This was a circumstance which led to 
a thousand brilliant anticipations of gayety and 
splendor: of crowded drawing-rooms and fasci- 
nating assemblies; of gay society, and of all' those 
varieties in pleasure with which the fashionable 
part of mankind contrive to kill that time, which 
during the progress of their lives they find too 
long, and, at its close, too short for them. The 
anticipation of this journey had given its coloring 
to her dreams ; and highly indeed had they been 
tinted by her sleeping fancies. As she turned 
round, however, in her bed, and beheld all the 


objects of her beautiful little apartment ; the while 
muslin window curtains, lined with rose-colored 
Persian ; the painted blinds ; the flowers cultivated 
by her own hand, and the pictures, the produce of 
her own talent and industry, and most of them por- 
traits of those scenes in the neighborhood in which 
she had known the first enjoyments of her exist- 
ence, and, unhappily for human nature, the first 
are generally the sweetest, a tender melancholy 
stole over her mind at the idea of quitting them. 

Then came the thought of parting from her 
parents; from the father, whose lips had first 
taught her lessons of youthful wisdom ; from the 
mother, whose tenderness had reared her in health 
and innocence, and from whose care she had never 
yet been absent even for a day ; and then the old 
servants of the mansion house, most of whom had 
been there at the period of her birth, and had 
reckoned it a treat to be allowed by « nurse” to 
dandle Miss Emily in their arms, and present her 
with fruit and flowers. 

Oppressed for a moment by these thoughts, and 
by one other, of which she was either unconscious 
or was ashamed to own it to herself, namely, the 
separation from one, whom of late she had been 
wont to look upon and feel for, with a tenderness 
surpassing that of friendship, she started from the 
bed, and throwing her dressing wrapper over her 
beautiful shoulders, and thrusting her lilliputian 
feet into her fur-lined silk slippers, she passed into 
her boudoir. Here was her private practising 
piano and guitar, neither of them objects likely to 
divert her mind from the scenes and circumstances 
she was quitting. She threw up the sash, and the 
mild spring air that rushed into the apartment re- 
vived her drooping spirits. 

It was one of those mornings which at this time 
of the year come as harbingers of summer. So 
mild that the flowers opened their closed buds to 
its influence, and summer insects quit their winter 
embryo, only to find in the evening a blast which 
W'ithers them for thus having been prematurely 
tempted into existence. The trees and shrubs dis- 
played the beautiful bright green which is the cha- 
racteristic of that early season of the year, which 
belongs to the poets from its freshness and youth, 
but from which the painter derives so little assist- 
ance. Her boudoir opened into a verandah over- 
looking her flower-garden. The earliest flowers 
were in blossom; and on every blade of grass, 
there hung bright drops of dew that sparkled like 
diamonds in the morning sun-beam. There was a 
cheerfulness of look, a healthiness of feeling, which 
imparted its influence to all around ; and the birds 
sang lustily as they shook the morning dew from 
the different branches which they had chosen for 
their perch. Every thing without spoke of youth, 
health, and beauty; and as Emily put aside the 
jessamine that hung over the window of the bou- 
doir, and gazed upon the morning, she looked, with 
her own youth, health, and loveliness, her bright 
blue eye and clear complexion, the fit inhabitant 
of the scene before her. 

The birds themselves seemed to welcome hei 
with a louder chorus, for there was not one of 
them that had not been her pensioner during the 
winter ; and the opening of her window had been 
the signal of her morning’s beneficence. 

Her eye first rested on the flowers she had 


THE OXONIANS. 


13 


planteJ, and which were now opening in their 
budding beauty to reward the pains she had be- 
stowed upon them. This garden, connected with 
her own apartment, had been hen sanctum sancto- 
rum, her refuge from disagreeable and annoying 
visiters, the scene of her early studies, the place 
where she had first understood and enjoyed that 
poetry which had been hitherto the delight of her 
existence, and from which she had at present de- 
rived her only ideas of life. Over the little sweet 
brier hedge which divided this garden from the 
other part of the domain were seen the towering 
/oaks and elms, the rich chestnuts, and vigorous 
sycamores of the park. Trees which had been on 
tlie estate for ages, and many of which were 
coeval with the first Hartley who had won an 
estate with his name. Through these in the blue 
distance were seen the Wye rolling its eddy wa- 
ters in a serpentine line along the country ; and 
beyond it, the distant mountains of Wales, in this 
early part of the morning, mingling with, and 
scarcely discernible from, the horizon 

Emily gazed upon the scene with delight. She 
felt the inspiration it was calculated to impart. 
Her heart literally thrilled with the beauty she 
contemplated ; she could have sung her joyfulness 
with the birds, and she forgot for a moment that 
she was about to quit these beauties, ^n the con- 
templation of which she had derived so much 
pleasure. 

Suddenly her attention was attracted by the un- 
usual movement of a thick cluster of shrubs, and 
she perceived for the first time that she was not 
alone in the contemplation of the scene before her. 
Half hidden by a large laurestinus stood Edward 
Forrester, whose image had mingled with her 
nightly dreams, and who had not been quite absent 
from her morning thoughts and regrets. The 
other beauties of the scene appeared to have no 
attraction for him ; his eyes were riveted upon 
her with an earnest gaze, which softened into a 
melancholy smile as he perceived himself disco- 
vered. To kiss her hand with an affectionate nod, 
which bade him not begone, and to retreat from 
the window in confusion as she recollected her 
dishabille, was the operation of a moment; but 
ten minutes more saw her at the side of one who 
had been the earliest companion of her youth, out 
of her own family ; and of the first person who 
had ever breathed in her ear the feelings created 
by sympathies warmer than those of friendship. 
They shook hands in silence; both knew they 
were going to part, and neither of them knew 
how to alleviate the pain which their separation 
created. 

Emily spoke first for she felt the least; with 
her it was friendship ripening to a warmer feeling 
from the continued observation of an admirable 
and manly character entirely and exclusively de- 
voted to herself ; with him it was an ardent pas- 
sion which formed the very principle of his exist- 
ence. There was no anticipation of his future life 
in which her form was not interwoven as the prin- 
cipal object ; no dread, no hope, no look for happi- 
ness, no fear of misery, that was unconnected with 
her ; and yet he was not blinded to the risk he 
ran in thus confiding his happiness to the keeping 
of one so young and inexperienced. But he had 
done it ; in forming her mind, for her intercourse 


with him had formed it more than almost any other 
circumstance in her life, he had, like Pygmalion, 
become enamored of his own work; but that work 
was any thing rather than a statue ; and Edward 
Forrester’s was a heart, that, admitting the passion 
of love once, felt it for ever. 

“ What a beautiful morning ! how fresh and de- 
lightful every thing appears; the very plants and 
flowers seem to enjoy it,” exclaimed Emily ; “ and 
how lovely this prospect appears !” 

“ And you are going to leave it ; going to give 
up the vernal freshness of the spring for the smoky 
atmosphere of a city ; this bright and boundless 
prospect, these beautiful flowers, for the circum- 
seribed view and stunted vegetation of a I^ondon 
Square;” answered he, despondingly. 

“ Well, my dear friend, am I accountable for 
the caprice of that fashion which makes the winter 
season begin with the spring and end with the 
autumn 1 Is it my fault that a more enlarged 
knowledge of life than I can obtain here is consi- 
dered necessary for me, or that the kindness of my 
friends will imagine pleasures for me in society, of 
the want of which I have been hitherto uncon- 
scious'?” were the naive questions of Emily, in 
reply to the almost reproachful tone in which For- 
rester had spoken. 

“ Forgive me, dear Miss Hartley.” Emily shook 
her head. “ Well then, Emily, since you have 
condescendingly allowed me to address you so 
familiarly, forgive me if I appear querulous at the 
idea of losing that which has been the principal 
pleasure of my existence.” 

“ Of losing !” exclaimed Emily ; “ nay, we are 
only parting for a time. The next three months 
will pass rapidly away, and the summer and au- 
tumn will witness the renewal of our walks and 
readings.” 

“To you they may pass rapidly,” replied For- 
rester, “ because they will be marked by new plea- 
sures, by new scenes ; because they will be passed 
in a new world. To me they must hang heavily, 
as my hours will only be counted by my fears and 
my regrets.” He paused, and painful thoughts 
seemed to oppress him. “ And will you,” resumed 
he, “ after the more exciting pleasures of society 
and the metropolis, after the gayety, the flattery, 
that will surround you there, return with the same 
zest for the simple delights of study and the 
country ?” 

“ With a greater, believe me,” said Emily; 
“ but if you are afraid of the evil influence of the 
scenes to which I am going, why not qOme with 
me] why not aid me with your expericince, and 
guide my steps by your judgment, there as well as 
here ? Why should not my Mentor of the coun- 
try follow his pupil to town 1 why permit your 
Telemachus to tread the dangerous shores of the 
island of Calypso alone!” playfully asked Emily. 

“ No, no. I should be as much out of my ele- 
ment there, as yonder rugged pollard would be if 
placed in the midst of this beautiful flower-garden;” 
and a painful sense of his inferiority in the little 
agremens, and in the manners of society, oppressed 
him; a pang rendered perhaps much greater by 
the consciousness of his real superiority in the 
more solid accomplishments of the understanding. 
For a moment he appeared buried in thought; 
then suddenly exclaiming, “ But you will return 


14 


THE OXONIANS. 


the same Emily that you leave me; the heartless 
world will have no power over the innocence of 
such a mind as yours ; you will only learn to prize 
the tranquil pleasures of the country the more,-and 
I will learn only to rejoice in the pleasures which 
you will enjoy. Only promise me that amid the 
splendor and gayety of the scenes you are going to 
witness, amid the wit and accomplishments of the 
persons with whom you are about to associate, 
you will sometimes cast a thought upon me in my 
solitude, and I shall be happy.^’ 

“ Oh believe me, many and many will be the 
hours devoted to such remembrances,” said the 
artless girl, to whom hitherto her evening rambles 
and morning readings with Forrester had been the 
sources of her greatest pleasures; and with this 
assurance they sought the house, which was now 
in all the bustle of pre^iaration. 

In the hreakfast-room they were met by Mr. and 
Lady Emily Hartley. The countenance of the 
latter betokened that anxiety which is the natural 
result of parting for the first time with a beloved 
child ; for this was indeed the first time that Emily 
had ever quitted the paternal roof, and the imme- 
diate protection of her parents. 

It had been originally intended that they should 
have accompanied her in her first excursion to 
London, and that an establishment should have 
been formed for the purpose of bringing out Emily, 
and of launching her brother, on his quitting col- 
lege, into something like public life ; but the lin- 
gering illness of a younger sister rendering the air 
of the metropolis dangerous, and requiring, in the 
eyes of Lady Emily, the tender cares of a mother, 
had determined them to defer the establishment for 
another year, while the pressing entreaties of a re- 
lative, whose Christmas had for many years been 
passed amid the festivities of Hartley Grove, had 
at length induced them to allow Emily to make 
her first appearance in the fashionable world under 
her auspices. 

It was at this festive period of the year that the 
quiet of the domestic circle of the Hartleys was 
alone broken in upon by a round of fashionable 
visiters, who were happy thus annually to continue 
their acquaintance with Lady Emily Hartley, who 
had herself, up to the period of her marriage, and 
for a few years afterward, been one of the principal 
leaders in the fashionable world. Some melan- 
choly circumstances, however, connected with the 
fate of an early and dear friend of her youth, had 
disgusted her for a moment with society, and she 
complied^with the wish of her husband, whose do- 
mestic habits ill accorded with the gayeties of 
fashionable life, by retiring to his estate, of which, 
from the moment of her residence, she had been 
the presiding and beneficent genius . 

Here Mr. Hartley had lived in the true English 
style of an English country gentleman, in the 
midst of, and looking after, the interests of his 
tenants. By this conduct he had at the same time 
attended to the truest interests of his own property, 
which had greatly increased under his superin- 
tendence. 

Courted and respected by the whole county, the 
proprietor of Hartley Grove kept up his establish- 
ment in the style of old English hospitality ; and 
at Christmas both the married and bachelor apart- 
ments of the mansion were filled for about three 


months by a succession of visiters, among whom 
might be reckoned some of the families the most 
distinguished for rank, fashion, and importance in 
the kingdom. 

Lady Emily’s connexions among the nobility 
were extensive, and though retired herself from the 
business of fashionable life, and fashionable life is 
no easy business, until her daughter was old enough 
to tempt her again within its vortex, she had not 
been sorry thus annually to refresh her early remi- 
niscences by the company of those among whom 
she had once been the gayest of the gay. 

One son and two daughters had blessed her union 
with Mr. Hartley, whom she had married more 
from her knowledge of the sterling worth of hifc 
character than for the brilliancy of his wit, the ex- 
tent of his accomplishments, or the elegance of his 
person; and his conduct and affection from the pe- 
riod of their marriage had never for an instant 
caused her to regret a step by which she had crush- 
ed the hopes and disappointed the expectations of 
many candidates for her hand, who had despised 
his humble pretensions while he was their rival. 
Dr. Johnson has said that we become wise by the 
experience of others as well as by our own ; and 
Lady Emily had profited by the experience of the 
early and dear friend before alluded to, and who 
had been won by the most accomplished man of 
the day, to the utter destruction of the happiness 
of her future life, which was one of bitter repent- 
ance from the period of her marriage to its melan- 
choly termination. 

» » » o * o • 

The carriage waited for Emily. There was yet 
a spot to be visited ; some flowers or shrub to be 
once more gazed at and recommended to the gar- 
dener’s especial care ; another look at her boudoir, 
her piano, her harp, and books, the friends of her 
childhood, the companions of her solitude, the 
cheerers of her youthful melancholy (for youth, 
where there is sensibility, is not always exempt 
from its morbid influence,) was necessary to her 
heart. She again threw herself into the arms of 
her parents, and almost hesitated whether, after all, 
she could go or not; at length, blushing for her 
weakness, she summoned her resolution, and, en- 
tering the hall, passed through the line of servants 
who were waiting to receive the farewell of their 
beloved young mistress. Here was the old nurse 
of the family, who had been the first to receive her 
at her birth ; she sobbed audibly as Emily kissed 
her wrinkled cheek, and recommended her birds to 
her especial attention. Every servant in turn re- 
ceived a kind farewell, or some commission to exe- 
cute during her absence. The groom was recom- 
mended to exercise her favorite pony; her two 
spaniels Slap and Dash, the constant companions 
of her rides and walks, were placed under the su- 
perintendence of the game-keeper, with strict in- 
junctions that they were not to be punished, even 
if they did now and then infringe a little on the 
“game laws,” and hunt for themselves. Every 
one had his commission, and received it as a lega- 
cy, the evidence of the kindness of their young 
mistress. 

Forrester presented his hand and placed her in 
the carriage, with a gentle pressure and a melan- 
choly look which seemed to say, “ Do not quite 
forget me and Lady Orville, to whose fashiona 


THE OXONIANS. 


15 


bJe notions all this scene was perfectly incompre- 
hensible, shook her hand according to the most or- 
thodox adieu, and impatiently desired the servant 
to proceed. 

“ Forward,” was the word ; smack went the 
whip, round went the wheels, and off flew the 
horses at the rate of twelve miles an hour. Emily 
had scarcely time to give one more glance at the 
group on the hall steps ere a turn' in the road shut 
the house altogether from her sight. 

Her parents, with Forrester, still lingered in the 
portico ; their eyes fixed on the tracks of the wheels 
which had borne away one so dear to them; at 
length they returned to the library, and the house- 
hold resumed their accustomed avocations; yet 
there was that melancholy listlessness, that inat- 
tention to common pursuits, that vacancy of heart 
which always characterizes the separation from a 
beloved object. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HETROSPECTITE. 

In life retrospection is seldom of service, unless 
It is to call into action that experience which the 
past may have been given us to guide us in some 
future event. To those to whom life has been un- 
fortunate, retrospection is melancholy, as only senr- 
ing to renew our sufferings by a recollection of 
them : and to those who have passed a life of plea- 
sure, it but too often brings regret that those plea- 
sures are passed, of which age creeping upon the 
strength of our youth, is quickly rendering a recur- 
rence impossible. But in a novel, retrospection is 
absolutely necessary. 

To create an interest in their fate, an author is 
obliged to plunge his readers at once into the midst 
of those personages with whom he is to travel 
through his work; and it becomes necessary for 
him afterwards to give a slight glance at their fa- 
milies and connexions, to show that he has not 
been introduced to improper characters. 

Having, therefore, like a careful guardian, launch- 
ed some of our young people fairly into the world, 
we must leave Lascelles to work his mail coach ; 
Frank Hartley to his solitary dreams of Caroline 
Dormer, in his post-chaise ; and Emily to her 
bright anticipations in Lady Orville’s carriage ; all 
rolling towards that great mart of commerce and ac- 
tivity, of wisdom and folly, of learning and igno- 
rance, and of virtue and iniquity — London — while 
we take a cursory glance at Hartley Grove and the 
good family who dwell in it. 

Mr. Hartley was one of those country gentlemen 
who are an honour and an ornament, and. what is 
perhaps better, of infinite utility to England, and 
of whom, alas ! in later days we have had but few. 
He lived on his estate, and his utmost ambition 
was gratified by its improvement, and by the good 
he could do to his tenantry, who were not only nu- 
merous but respectable; metropolitan extra vance 
had not compelled their landlord to raise his rents 
beyond their means of payment ; the Grove itself 


consumed a great portion of their produce ; rent* 
were paid, in many instances, in kind ; and Mr. 
Hartley’s ten thousand a year was not merely nv> 
minal, since the tenants, feeling the benefit of liv- 
ing unaer such a landlord, were as solicitous for 
the payment of their rent as on many other estates 
they were anxious to avoid and to postpone it. Mr. 
Hartley himself looked after his tenants; he did 
not trust to any mercenary steward, but was gene- 
rally present on the quarter day, inquired into their 
means, and their welfare; and remitted the pay- 
ment, or diminished it, where crops had fallen 
short, or where sickness or misfortune had render- 
ed raising the rent money a difficulty. 

By living greatly within his real income, instead 
of keeping an establishment greatly beyond his no- 
minal one, he was not only an unencumbered land- 
ed proprietor, a rare thing in these days, but a man 
of considerable funded property, and one who had 
been of infinite assistance to several of the neigh- 
bouring proprietors in the county, to the great an- 
noyance of mercenary stewards, and of pettifogging 
agents, who would otherwise have made their mar- 
ket of them, and to whom they would have been 
an easy prey. 

By this means, Mr. Hartley, of Hartley Grove, 
was beloved by the rich as well as the poor. As 
he was no public man, there was no political rival- 
ry to create him enemies among the men ; and as 
Lady Emily’s drawing-room was open to every body 
in the country whose character was fair, and never 
displayed pretensions, even equal to her rank, she 
was a general favorite among the ladies, so that 
the only wonder was, that, with her husband’s in- 
come, her own accomplishments, and her immense 
connexions in the great world, she was content to 
vegetate in the country, instead of figuring away, 
as she might have done, as one of the distin- 
guished leaders of the ton during the London sea- 
son. 

Lady Emily had herself been educated at a fash- 
ionable boarding school, had gone through the mo- 
dish regulation of coming out, being presented, and 
had passed the routine of several London seasons. 
During this period she had made up her mind as 
to the evil tendency of such a method of education ; 
she had seen the heart schooled into heartlessness ; 
she had seen form take the place of feeling ; tour- 
nure more the object both of pupil and mistress 
than the mind or morals ; and the dancing-master 
and the lady’s maid of more consequence than all 
the other instructors who were employed upon the 
establishment. She had seen all this, and she had 
determined never to subject her own daughters to 
the dangers of a dashing establishment of the same 
kind. 

At this school, too, she had formed a friendship 
which had, in some measure given a color to the 
whole of her future life ; and in the early and un- 
fortunate fate of her beloved Agnes she had learn- 
ed a deep and ineffaceable lesson, from which she 
she was determined to profit in the education and 
establishment of her own daughter. Lady Emily’s 
affection for this early friend had been strengthened 
by its object having first married her own brother, 
and thus added the ties of relationship to those of 
friendship. 

The marriage had been rendered unhappy by 
the conduct of Lady Emily’s brother, and was at 


16 


THE OXONIANS. 


length dissolved by his violent death in a duel, the 
result of some gambling transaction. During the 
continuance of this connexion the various accom- 
plishments and character of Agnes had inspired 
the bosom of Lord Arlington, a first cousin of Mr. 
Hartley, with a passion so ardent, that, forgetting 
all his vows against marriage, and all the satires 
against the sex which a too successful life of liber- 
tinism had induced him to indulge, he proposed 
himself as her second husband ; and she, too apt to 
believe in his expressions of repentance for his for- 
mer life, too good herself to imfigine depravity so 
deeply-seated, and led away by the extraordinary 
accomplishments and great power of pleasing ex- 
hibited by Lord Arlington, consented to be led a 
second time to the altar, in spite of several myste- 
rious warnings which would have prevented this 
sacrifice of one of the loveliest as well as one of the 
most amiable of human beings. 

Lady Emily married Mr. Hartley on the same 
day that her friend Agnes united her fate with 
that of his cousin. Lord Arlington ; and for two 
seasons the friends were at the head of every thing 
that was gay and fashionable in town; and what 
was far better, these fashionable pursuits did not 
mar their domestic happiness. During this period 
Agnes had given birth to a daughter, and she was 
revelling in all the delights of a young mother, 
when a discovery took place that, by proving the 
father of her child to be a villain, blighted all her 
happiness in the bud. A lady, an Italian by birth, 
arrived in London, and set up a public and prior 
claim to Lord Arlington as her husband, by a pre- 
vious marriage on the continent. Her claim was 
but too well founded. Agnes was in her own eyes 
a disgraced woman, and her child blasted with the 
stain of illegitimacy. 

Shrinking from the world, as though she were 
herself the criminal instead of the victim, as though 
she were the guilty cause instead of the innocent 
sufferer, she fled with her child, without even com- 
municating to her earliest friend the place of her 
retreat. Her libertine husband also quitted a 
country where not all his rank and influence could 
have saved him from the effects of its offended laws, 
or from the execrations of those who pitied his 
victim and abhorred! her destroyer. 

Lady Emily, overcome by the fate of her friend, 
imbibed a distaste for the scenes of their mutual 
enjoyment, and retired with her husband from the 
great world to Hartley House, where they had 
lived happy, blessed and respected for a period of 
twenty years, during which time she had never 
ceased to lament the fate of her early friend, to 
whose memory she gave a sigh even in the midst 
of her own most exquisite enjoyment, as a mother. 

During this period no certain tidings had ever 
been heard of the absent Agnes; and Lord Arling- 
ton was only known to be alive through the me- 
dium of his banker and confidential agent, who 
had never communicated, even if he knew it, the 
name under which he travelled. 

Rumors had brought intelligence of a duel in 
some obscure corner of Italy, the result of some 
other flagrant breach of moral principle, and these 
rumors were coupled with accounts of the deaths 
both of Agnes and Lord Arlington. But nothing 
further was known excepting the falsehood of the 
report of Lord Arlington’s death. He was still 


living, though where was only known to his agent, ' 
by whom the greater part of his princely income 
was paid in to bankers in different parts of the j 
Continent, so as to meet his exigencies whenever 
and wherever he might require his funds. 

Mr. Hartley, though but a distant one, was yet : 
his nearest relative, and being lineally connected | 
with Lord Arlington, and of course presumptive i 
heir to his title and estate, the agent thought it | 
necessary to give him periodical intelligence of the i 
existence of that nobleman; excepting upon these ; 
occasions the name of Arlington was never men- i 
tioned. It w'as coupled with too many painful 
recollections in the mind of Lady Emily, who 
dreaded the necessity of one day being obliged to 
assume the title by which her early friend had 
been so signally disgraced. Many and anxious 
had been her attempts, for the first few years of 
her absence, to discover the retreat of Agnes, and 
to ascertain the fate of her child ; but year after 
year rolling on without any intelligence, she had 
gradually admitted the idea that they were both no 
more, and her inquiries ceased. | 

At the period at which our history commences. 
Hartley and Lady Emily had begun to feel the 
necessity of once more entering the world for the 
sake of their children. Their son had been of age ' 
nearly two years, and as we have seen was on the 
point of leaving college ; and the fashionable friends, 
who formed their Christmas circle at the Grove, 
had at length persuaded Lady Emily to give her ' 
daughter the advantage of a winter in London ; 
and willing to defer, yet a little longer, appearing 
again at the head of a London establishment, she 
had entrusted Emily, as we have also seen, to the 
care of her cousin Lady Orville, the widow of the 
Earl of Orville, and one of the foremost in the 
ranks of fashion. Had Lady Emily seen this lady 
in town, instead of merely during her periodical 
visits to Hartley Grove, she ha^d paused before she 
had confided so sacred a trust to her charge ; but 
Lady Orville was one of those women who could 
mould herself to please every body, and adapt . 
herself to any society in which she happened to be 
placed. She had therefore appeared to Lady Emily ; 

‘ Hartley just the kind of person with whom, in the . 
absence of her mother, Emily might be entrusted. 3 
Could Lady Emily have guessed that Orville f 
House was the most dissipated in town ; that, in i 
addition to the banquetings and quadrilles, there 
was play to a considerable extent; and that where ' 
there was any great object to be obtained, the ( 
hostess’s eyes were conveniently shut to any little 1 
blemishes of character in her numerous guests, she fi 
would have trembled for her daughter, or rather, f 
she would never have permitted the visit which I 
was now taking place with her free sanction. -H 
Lady Emily’s knowledge, however, of Lady® 
Orville was confined to the commencement of her k 
life; before a course of dissipation and extravagance, * 
and, if report said true, something worse than 
either, had deteriorated the heart which Lady c 
Emily had recollected to have been distinguished 
as much by its generosity as by its gayety. She 1 
had known her before the developement of those 
passions which had turned a gay and giddy girl 
into a dissipated, violent, and artful woman; and 
had her subsequent knowledge of her been in 
London instead of the country, she would never f 


THE OXONIANS. 


17 


ft 


' have recognised her early and intimate friend, 
Cecelia Neville, in the dashing, dissipated, and pro- 
fligate Countess of Orville. 



CHAPTER V. 


COMING OUT. 

Well, our young Oxonians, together with one 
of our heroines, were thus launched into the great 
world. To those who are for the first time out of 
the leading strings of tutors and governesses, who 
have looked forward to this liberty as the acme and 
climax of delight ; who have for years lived on the 
anticipation of the moment which was to enfran- 
chise them from the trammels of scholastic disci- 
pline, and to open the great panorama of life to 
I their view, the sensations of our new comers may 
I easily be imagined. The change from the tran- 
i quillity of Hartley Grove, and from the dullness of 
Oxford, to the full meridian of the world, was 
j equally electrical. The contrast between the study 
at the one and the seclusion of the other, and the 
routs, balls, dinners, operas, and plays, which suc- 
ceeded each other with incredible rapidity, was 
equally striking; and was alike felt by Emily, her 
brother, and Lascelles. 

They arrived, too, precisely at that part of the 
year, in which the season of London is at its meri- 
dian, in which all the world ’seems running and 
rioting in a career of dissipation and extravagance ; 
when the head is dizzied by the rapid whirl of the 
thousand vehicles which dart through the streets, 
bearing their owners on their various pursuits by 
day ; and bewildered by the rapid and repeated 
reverberations of a chorus of knockers by night : 
when hall tables are crowded by pasteboard chal- 
lenges to dinners and quadrilles, as though there 
were nothing in the world to do but to dance and 
to dine, and nothing in life to attend to but amuse- 
ment and pleasure. 

The birth and fortunes both of Hartley and 
Lascelles at once commanded admission into the 
upper classes of society. Their families were too 
well known to require any farther introduction for 
them, than being the scions of the parent stock. 
Every door was open to them, and invitations 
poured in from all quarters. Indeed, had not their 
rank ensured them these privileges, seven thousand 
a-year in possession would have secured Lascelles 
a welcome reception ; and fifteen thousand per 
annum in expectancy would have made Hartley 
a very desirable addition to any family, however 
noble in birth or aristocratic in notions ; for it is 
astonishing how all the pride of pedigree will 
melt under the golden influence of three per cent, 
consols,^ or of a rent roll. 

Hartley was well pleased enough with the atten- 
tion he received, and with the numerous invitations 
to which it gave rise : but, independently of the 
pre-occupation of his heart by a passion which he 
tried to persuade himself was to be eternal, he 
pas.sed the battery of sighs, glances, and even 
gentle pressures of the hand, unscathed and un- 


touched; though at the same time he indulged in 
all the vanity which is gratified by those little 
secret inlelligencj^s which were permitted to exist 
between him and some half dozen young ladies 
who ranked among the reigning belles of the 
moment. 

Hartley possessed a great store of animal spirits, 
and the desultory fits of study by which he had 
sometimes been seized, added to a very retentive 
memory and a strong imagination, gave him »o 
much facility of conversation, that, though he did 
not rank among the wits of the day, he was soon 
pronounced a clever agreeable man, and was very 
seldom considered de trop", even by those who were 
hopeless of any thing from him beyond the enter- 
tainment of the moment. 

But Lascelles was quite a different person. He 
was no ladies* man. All topics that did not ema- 
nate from a love of those favorite pursuits which 
he was pleased to call manly ennuyed him to 
death. At dinner he would gape over a political 
or literary discussion : pronounced quadrilles to be 
infernal; and the necessity of doing the agreeable 
a d d bore. He soon therefore detached him- 

self from the circle from which he could not entice 
Hartley; and, surrounded by the fancy, who 
elected him their patron, or by “ gentlemen” of 
the turf, who allowed him to be their dupe; he 
was oftener heard of at Tattersal’s and the One 
Tun, making up his books for the Derby, and the 
St. Leger, or forming a match between the Chicken 
and Gas man ; than in the midst of that elite of 
society, to which he had the privilege of admittance. 



CHAPTER VI. 


p 

P. HARTLEY TO CHARLES STRICTLAND. 

Well, my dear Strictland, here I am, in the very 
midst of the gay world, and though not the “gayest 
of the gay,’* I am quite enough so to laugh at all 
the moral lectures you used to read me of the 
insufficiency of the world, of the pleasures of re- 
tirement, and the delights of study. — Upon my 
soul, my dear fellow, you had better leave your 
musty books, and the worm-eaten wainscot of your 
rooms at Oxford, and come and spend a few months 
with me in the shades of my curtain ; “ couleur de 
rose,** in Cavendish Square. I could get a hun- 
dred fair damsels to take pity upon you, and to 
polish olf the rust of the college, and to transform 
you from a book-worm into a man “ comme ii 
faut.** But I know it is in vain to ask you; you 
prefer the classics to a quadrille ; the disciples of 
the Stoa to the guests of the dining room ; and the 
lumbering lore of the ancients to the light literature 
of the moderns. 

But what, in the name of wonder, can make 
philosophers rail so against the world. It certainly 
is a beautiful world, and contains every delight 
that man is capable of enjoying ; and it must be a 
good world, for here am I, a perfect stranger, re- 
ceived by a hundred families I r..ever saw before, 
upon the footing of an old friend, t must be a hos- 


18 


THE OXONIANS. 


pitable world, for my table is so crowded with invi- 
tations, that could I cut myself into a hundred 
pieces, I should find a dinner and a dance for every 
individual atom into which I should divide myself. 
Wherever I go I am welcomed by hearty shakes 
of the hand; wherever I turn, I am met by smiles 
and looks of approbation. The conversation, which 
you used to designate as frivolous, here passes for 
wit; and I never attempt a sally that does not 
meet with the approbation of a dozen pair of bright 
eyes, which give me so much encouragement, that 
in spite of your predictions to the contrary, I really 
begin to think myself a prodigiously clever fellow. 
That others think me so, I am rather inclined to 
believe ; for I had not been in town a night before 

I was initiated into the suppers at C s ; or a 

week, before I was elected a member of the Cocoa- 
tree and Arthur’s. The first opera night, two 
young lords kept their carriages at full gallop, and 
carried up the mystic number, to make me a mem- 
ber at White’s. I had the entree of M House, 

without undergoing the usual probation; and 
vouchers were sent to me for Almacks, without the 
preliminary of entreaty. At all this your gravity will 
laugh ; but what do you say to a political employe, 
asking my opinion upon the balance of power in 
Europe; a young clergyman consulting me upon a 
knotty point in theology ; and a celebrated author 
requesting my criticism upon a passage in his new 
work. It is true, that the politician thought I was 
to sit for my father’s vacant borough. The parson 
asked me how old the present incumbent of Hartley 
vicarage might be ; and the author finished by put- 
ting my name down as a subscriber for ten copies 
of his work. But this you know was all in the 
way of their various metiers, and could have no 
influence on their motives ; though I did feel rather 
qualmish about it at the time. 

Then my apartment is crowded in the morning 
with artists and authors, with professors and ama- 
teurs, all looking eagerly up to my opinion, re- 
questing my recommendation, and soliciting my 
patronage. 

Oh, it certainly is a delightful world ; and the 
women, Strictland, the women — take your eyes off 
that passage of Thucydides, Strictland, and attend 
to what I have to say about the women! At 
Oxford we knew scarcely any, excepting the pastry 
cook’s daughter, and our bed makers: queer speci- 
mens of the fair sex, to be sure, yet the only ones 
that we Oxonians generally know, until we make 
our entrance into the great world. To be sure 
there was one, but then you don’t know her; so 
no matter. The women here are certainly delight- 
ful; the old ones all chatter and kindness; the 
young ones all artlessness and gayety ; no formality 
to repress one ; no demureness to freeze one into 
ice ; but open as the day, free as the air, and lovely 
as — but comparisons are said to be odious, and I 
can neally find none that is not so in comparison 
with women. Then their beauty, as varied as it 
is alluring. Brunettes and blondes, jetty and 
auburn ; black eyes and blue eyes, with a plentiful 
sprinkle of the true hazle ; with forms, from inci- 
pient womanhood up to the stately matron, all 
equally beautiful of their kind. 

Mahomet must have paid a visit to England, and 
there imagined his Paradise; for I do not think 
there is any country under the sun which can make 


such a display of beauty as that which forms the 
present galaxy of female attraction in London. 
Then their air, their manners; their, what the 
French call, “ /oumwre,” is absolutely indescriba- 
ble; then they are j^okind, listen to what one says 
with such att ntion, laugh at one’s bon-mots, 
(which you never would do,) sing and dance when 
they are asked, lean their lovely forms upon your 
arm when they are fatigued, sip their ices with 
such grace. Oh, Strictland, Strictland ! what do 
you i>at lose by being moped up in a college all 
your life; it is a beautiful world, and I will main- 
tain it against all the dogmas of the most dogmati- 
cal cynic that ever lived in a tub, or scribbled phi- 
losophy. 

As to my present life, imagine one scene of per* 
petual pleasure and gayety, with just enough repose 
to prepare me for its enjoyment and to rest me 
from its fatigues, and you have its history. But 
you will blame all this; you will call that folly 
which I call delight ; but yet I will maintain that 
it is a beautiful world. 

The family in which I am most intimate is that 
of the Countess of Orville, who has the charge of 
bringing out my sister. You remember Orville her 
son ; he quitted Christchurch just a year after our 
arrival, on his accession to the earldom by the death 
of his father. He was there, if you recollect, deno- 
minated the fine gentleman ; a character which he 
has preserved in the world, as he is looked up to by 
hundreds of imitators who dress after his model and 
follow his fashions, revolving around him as their 
orbit, and like his satellites, borrowing all the lustre 
of which they can boast from his reflection. He 
is not only a fine gentleman but a good fellow ; W'e 
are very intimate, and he promised to initiate mo 
into all the best things in town. Indeed it is, I be- 
lieve, to his influence that I may mainly attribute 
my easy entrance into the clubs. Lady Orville 
herself is a perfect woman of fashion, and I suspect 
of the world ; very kind and patronising to mo, 
and her good word goes a great way in society. In 
short, the whole world seems to vie who shall 
make themselves most agreeable to me ; and I again 
say it is a most beautiful world and you shall not 
gainsay it. 

At Orville House I met with many of our old 
Oxonians, and among the rest Langley, whom you 
must recollect, varying his pursuits with every man 
of the day ; here he is the life of every party, and 
preserving his usual flow of spirits in spite of the 
late decree by which he has been deprived of so 
great a portion of his fortune. He, with a hundred 
other pleasant fellows, makes time pass merily ; and 
then they have all such good hearts that I find my- 
self daily increasing the number of friends, though 
never to the exclusion of you, my dear fellow. By- 
the-hy, you will soon be a Fellow in reality ; so 
adieu. Write me a dull line from your dull college, 
and believe me, sincerely yours, 

Frank Hartley. 

To this vivid epistle a few posts brought fte fol- 
lowing reply : 

“ Were I, my dear Hartley, to enter life the heir 
of fifteen thousand a year, with an earldom in ex- 
pectancy, I dare say I should find every thing 
“ Couleur de Rose” as you do. As this, however, 
is not the case, 1 must content myself with dream- 


t 


THE OXONIANS. 


19 


ing of lawn sleeves, pushing my nightcap into the 
shape of a mitre in my sleep, and devoting myself 
to divinity, but shall always remain your attached 
friend. 

Charles Strictla jid.’* 

As Hartley read this laconic epistle, which 
seemed to cast a doubt upon the motives of the at- 
tentions he received, and the pleasures which were 
procured for him, he crumbled it in his hand with 
a momentary start of anger, and exclaiming, “ A 
very Diogenes !” threw it into the fire. 

Before, however, it was consumed, both the an- 
ger, and the momentary reflection which it had ex- 
cited had vanished ; and Orville being announced, 
away they went in their daily pursuits, and 
Strictland with his strictures were forgotten. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A ROUT. 

“Sir Harry Winslow’s carriage stops the 
way.” 

‘‘ Lady Winslow coming down.” 

The Marchioness of Tourville’s carriage.” 

<< Lady Harriet Buckley’s carriage.” 

“The Marchioness of Tourville coming down.” 

“ Lady Harriet Buckley coming down” — were 
the sounds that thundered through the spacious hall 
and splendid staircase of one of the aristocratic 
mansions of Cavendish-square; while guest after 
guest, elegantly attired, the females sparkling with 
gold and jewels, and enveloped in shawls of Cash- 
mere and cloaks of ermine, glided through a long 
lane of liveried lackeys to their carriages, without 
casting a thought upon the crowd of houseless 
wretches who pressed round the door with a curio- 
aity to see these better-fated mortals, which even 
poverty, starvation, and coldness could not re- 
press. 

Cabriolets and a few remaining carriages made 
their way up to the door, and were one by one en- 
tered by these late loungers. “ Who is for 

C d’s 1 His supper will scarcely be over yet, 

and the crowd here was so cursed hungry that I 
could not impound a sandwich. Langley, will you 
go]” addressing the wit at whose sally they had 
just laughed so immoderately. 

“ No, thank ye.” 

Can I set you down, Langley ]” 

“No, thank ye ;” and had the light of the lamp 
then glanced on Langley’s face, it would have 
shown a transient blush, as his memory reverted 
to the home at which the speaker wished to set 
him down. 

“ Well, Langley, you were in high feather to- 
day,^ upon honor. Don’t forget you dine with 
me at seven to-morrow,” said one, as he drove 
off. 

“ Don’t forget me for Thursday at eight,” said 
another, and off darted his spirited horse, 

“Nor my dinner, Langley, on Friday,” cried a 
third, as he drew up the glasses of his chariot. 


“And mind,” said Lascelles, whom the great as- 
sembly at Orville House had attracted from his set, 
“mind you remember my feed on Sunday, where 
we expect you will come in your best spirits, for 
we shall have some jolly dogs, and there are no 

d d parties to interrupt a jovial evening;” and 

away drove the different inviters in their different 
vehicles to their various destinations of clubs, mis- 
tresses, and h — lls, leaving only some half-dozen 
carriages, belonging to those whose ecarte tables 
were not yet broken up, or whose flirtations remain- 
ed unfinished. The forced smile passed away from 
Langley’s face ; the last laugh which he gave to 
his departing companions almost assumed the sound 
of a convulsive sob ; external excitation was past, 
and his mind turned to its own interior and bitter 
reflections, as he wended his way on foot through 
the spacious squares to an humble street that I 
should be ashamed to name as the residence of any 
one who was occasionally, nay, continually, admit- 
ted, if not courted, in so many circles of the first fa- 
shion ; yet in this street lived Langley. A small 
key of one of Bramah’s patent hjcks, procured him 
entrance to the humble house which formed his 
home ; and in that house was a listening ear and a 
beating heart, that anxiously waited his return, and 
to whom the sound of the key that admitted him 
was sweeter than the most celebrated air of the 
most celebrated composer. 

“ He is here !” said she, and her heart became 
tranquil. “ He is returned !” and her anxiety ceas- 
ed, her flurried pulse beat evenly. Before he could 
reach the second floor, for Langley could afford to 
lodge no lower, the door was open to receive him, 
a finger on the lips, and a sagacious look towards 
the cradle told him that their child slept, and warn- 
ed him to silence. 

A pang shot across his heart as Langley contem- 
plated the humble scene before him, and contrasted 
it with the splendor which he had just quitted ; and 
something like a feeling of shame came across him 
as he thought how different had been the occupa- 
tion of himself and those of his wife (for it was his 
wife, reader) on that evening. His hours had been 
passed in fashionable society, in the enjoyment of 
luxuries to which his fortune no longer entitled 
him, in the midst of gaieties to which his own wit 
had given the principle zest. Hers, in the perform- 
ance of the humblest of her domestic duties, in 
nursing their child, in reflecting upon the fallen 
fortunes of her husband, and in thinking upon him 
in his absence. 

These thoughts wrung an involuntary sigh from 
his bosom ; but a confiding and affectionate kiss, a 
smile of welcome, such as nothing but the affection 
of a woman, of a wife, can give, and the blush of 
pleasure that mantled in her cheek at his return, 
tranquillized his feelings. 

Langley, in the plenitude of prosperity, had been 
at Oxford, and it was at college, that first meeting 
with Lord Orville, their friendship had continued, 
if that kirid of intercourse which consists in 
associations and visiting may be called friend- 
ship. 

All the world had known Langley as the ex- 
pectant heir of a princely fortune, and had partici- 
pated in the elegances and splendor of his hospita- 
ble mansion. All the world knew of the wreck of 
his hopes, of the blight of his early prospects, of hif 




20 


THE OXONIANS. 


present poverty ; but how poor he was, no one 
knew. He still kept up his subscription to his 
club, where all letters were addressed to him ; and 
his humble home was therefore a secret, as well as 
his marriage. He was still not only tolerated in the 
society in which he had been born, but courted for 
the wit with which he could entertain, and of which 
his fallen fortunes had not deprived him. His 
friends were, in outward appearance, still the same, 
but he had not tried them. He was known to be 
poor, but he had never yet had recourse to the 
purses of his more fortunate companions; his po- 
verty had never yet rendered him troublesome to 
his friends, and their friendship, therefore, appear- 
ed to be undiminished. 

Langley’s was a melancholy, and, I fear, not an 
uncommon story. From infancy he was nursed in 
the lap of luxury, the pet of a doting mother, the 
pride of an atfectionate father ; his natural talents 
had been cultivated by the best education which the 
country could afford ; his boyhood was spent at 
Eton, the commencement of his manhood was 
passed at Oxford. Possessed of unbounded wealth, 
his father made him so liberal an allowance that 
his purse was always at the service of his compa- 
nions, and Langley was voted the best fellow in 
the world. His wit and conversational talents ren- 
dered his society an r.cquisition, and his company 
was accordingly courted by young men of the high- 
est rank, till no college-feast was the thing unless 
’liungley was one of the party. 

During a shooting excursion, the first year after 
his departure from Oxford, accident introduced him 
to Miss Fanny Palmer, the daughter of a man 
with whom his father had quarelled early in life. 
A mutual attachment was the consequence of their 
meeting. During this period, the failure of some 
great Indian establishment ruined Mr. Palmer, 
whose constitution sunk under the shock, and he 
died, leaving his daughter Fanny pennyless and 
friendless, with no hope of protection, excepting 
from a paternal uncle, who was in India, and who 
had never forgiven his sister for connecting herself 
with a man engaged in commerce. 

The friendless situation of Fanny only served to 
increase the passion of Langley ; and he generous- 
ly though imprudently deternjined to rescue her 
from her present friendless position by making her 
his wife. Unhappily he determined upon this step 
without the consent of his father. Unprotected 
and unadvised, she consented to a private marriage, 
and became the wife of the man whom her heart 
preferred beyond all others. 

The generous allowance of Langley’s father 
prevented all difficulties of supplying his wife’s 
very moderate desires. Her only want was his 
society, of which, situated as they were, she could 
of course, enjoy very little; and it was this, more 
than any other advantage which she might derive 
from its disclosure, that made her urge the pub- 
lication of their marriage, now rendered more ne- 
cessary by the certainty of her speedy confinement. 
His mother’s death had prevented Langley’s making 
this disclosure so soon as he had at first intended. 

Determined at length at all events to unfold the 
truth, he was diligently looking out for a favorable 
opportunity, when his father was seized with apo- 
plexy, and, after lingering a few days, expired 


without recovering his senses, or giving any signs 
of recognition. 

On the death of the old gentleman, every body 
treated Langley as the heir to his wealth, while 
diligent search was made among his papers for a 
will. When the fact of his having died intestate 
became known, the steward, who had acted as ge- 
neral agent for the late Mr. Langley, to the sur- 
prise of every body, put his seal upon the different 
papers, and peremptorily ordered that nothing should 
be disturbed till the heir, or his legitimate agent, 
should inspect them. Langley was himself too 
much absorbed in the event, to know of this till 
the funeral was over; when Mr. Turner, whom he 
could never bear, from the cringing hypocrisy with 
which he had always treated his father, demanded 
an interview. On Langley’s declining to see him, 
Turner insisted, and at length almost forcing him- 
self into the library, he stood before his young 
master, without any of that cringing servility 
which had always hitherto distinguished him in 
his intercourse with his old master and his son. 

Langley, surprised at the unwelcome intrusion, 
demanded the reason for his thus insisting upon an 
interview. 

“ I wish to know, sir,” replied Turner, “ whe- 
ther you are aware of any w’ill left by the late 
Mr. Langley.” 

“ You, I understand, Turner, have searched all 
my father’s papers, and have found none,” replied 
Langley. 

“ I am sorry for it,” said Turner, while a mali- 
cious glance interpreted his pretended sorrow into 
triumph ; “ for I much fear you will have little to 
expect from his heir at law.” 

“ Heir at law ! Why the man is mad,” ex- 
claimed Langley ; and, for the moment, he thought 
as he said. 

“ Not so mad as you imagine, sir ; but pray sif 
down, and tranquillize yourself; all may yet be 
well, if you will act wisely,” said Turner, as he 
drew a chair familiarly, and seated himself, “ and 
if you will follow my advice — ” 

“ When it is requisite, sir, it will be sought,’' 
said Langley, who still continued standing ; “ at 
present, I have no need of it, and would be left to 
myself.” 

“ More need of it, Mr. George, than you may 
imagine,” continued the wily steward, in the same 
familiar tone. 

“ Once for all, Turner, I am in no mood for 
business now, and you must be either drunk or 
mad to force it upon me at this moment,” reite- 
rated Langley. 

“ I am neither drunk nor mad, Mr. George ; but, 
in spite of the galling pride with which you have 
ever treated me, am come now to offer to do you a 
service ; to save you from a perilous position.” 

“ What do you mean! What peril can threaten 
mel” 

“ Your father’s relations — ” 

Langley interrupted him. Do not imagine, 
Mr. Turner, that I have forgotten them. One of 
my first duties will be, and in that, it is true you 
may assist me ; to seek them out, and make such 
provision for them out of my father’s wealth, as ho 
himself would have done, had he not have been cut 
©IT so suddenly.” 


THE OXONIANS. 


21 


“ Think of yourself, Mr. George, rather than of 
Ihem,^’ said Turner; “it is time enough to think 
©f them when you. are yourself secure.’’ 

“ Secure !” 

“ Aye, Mr. George, secure ; and know that your 
security depends upon me;” and this Turner re- 
peated twice, with a sinister expression of counte- 
nance, which denoted the delight he anticipated in 
the effect of the intelligence he was about to com- 
municate. 

“ My security depend upon you ! upon you ! 
Mr. Turner. I do not understand you ; you be- 
wilder me. Pray explain yourself more clearly; 
and if you have any thing of importance to com- 
municate, let it be presently done,” said Langley, 
with as much tem{)cr as the insolent air of the 
other would allow liim to command. 

“Not so fast, Mr. George, not so fast; first sign 
these two papers, and I am silenced for ever, and 
the secret shall retnain buried in my own breast.” 

“ What secret !” asked Langley, as he mecha- 
nically cast his eyes over the two papers ; the one 
of which was a full ratification of Turner’s ac- 
counts up to that period ; and the other a bond for 
ten thousand pounds. 

“ A secret which involves your future fate,” said 
Turner. 

By this time Langley had porused the two papers, 
and turning calmly round to the steward, who was 
still seated, he quietly said, “ Mr. Turner, the first 
of these papers only serves to confirm me in what 
you know I have long suspected ; namely, that 
you have not been the honest agent to my father 
which he supposed you to be ; for the second, I am 
at a loss to know the grounds on which you can 
make so inordinate a demand. — Be silent for a few 
moments; and now, Mr. Turner, once for all, since 
you have forced me into business, for which I am 
yet unfit, as well as unprepared, I request you will 
make up your accounts without delay, that I may 
judge from them whether my suspicions are cor- 
rect; and that I may do you justice, if they should 
prove erroneous.” 

“ Mr. George, Mr. George, don’t provoke me ; 
you know not what you do. I am in possession of 
n secret, upon which your whole welfare depends ; 
and, by signing these papers, you will bury the 
secret for ever in my breast,” said the steward. 

“ What is your secret?” firmly asked Langley; 
“ what is your secret ?” 

The steward looked cautiously round ; opened 
the door, to see that no one was listening, aud 
then closing it carefully, and approaching Langley, 
he said, in a hoarse loud whisper, “You are an 
illegitimate child ; you have no claim to your fa- 
ther’s fortune ; the lineal heir is a pettifogging at- 
torney ; and a word from me puts him into pos- 
session of this mansion and your father’s estates 
and sends you forth a houseless and a pennyless 
beggar.” 

The first sentence of this tirade came like a 
thunderbolt upon Langley ; he heard no other part 
of the steward’s speech ; all his faculties seemed 
absorbed in the one great affront which its com- 
mencement put upon himself and his parents. Its 
consequences never occurred to him. 

“ Villain !” he exclaimed ; and with his right 
hand he seized the steward by the throat ; “ ’Tis a 
lie . an infernal lie ! Oh, mother ! Oh, mother ! 

a 


and am I doomed to bear your loved name traduc- 
ed, and by the viper which my father nourished 
into existence. Villain, unsay your words, or by 
heavens” — here his feelings overcame him, his 
hand relaxed its hold, and the trembling steward, 
escaping from his grasp, hurried out of the room, 
muttering something, in which “madman” and 
“ bastard ” were the only words that struck upon 
his ear. 

Langley’s faculties were stunned ; he remem- 
bered some history .of his father having eloped 
with his mother, and of their having been subse- 
quently forgiven. Could it be possible? had the 
steward spoken truth ? he would not, could not, 
believe it. 

In case he should have died before bis father, 
he had effected an insurance on his life in favor 
of his wife ; and to do this he remembered having 
obtained a certificate of his birth. That of his 
father’s marriage had been discovered in the gene- 
ral search after the will. He hastened to the 
drawer which contained these papers, compared 
their dates, and to his horror discovered that the 
certificate of the marriage was dated one month 
later than that of his birth. 

This was, indeed, a confirmation of the truth of 
the steward’s assertion. Nor was he long before he 
felt the activity of this man’s revenge. A few 
days brought him accompanied by the heir at law. 
The facts were too stubborn, even for the lawyer# 
to advise his contesting the claim which was set 
up to his father’s estate ; but this his respect for 
the name of his mother would have prevented, 
unless it was certain of clearing her fame from the 
attainder. There was no proof to be obtained of 
any previous marriage; although some old nurse 
said that she thought a secret union must have 
taken place. Advertisement after advertisement 
was inserted, offering large rewards for any in- 
formation that could elucidate the mystery, without 
producing any effect. In the mean time, the heir 
at law, aided by the steward, took such effectual 
measures to make good his claim, that he was soon 
in possession of all that wealth to which Langley 
thought himself the legitimate heir; and he found 
himself the master only of a small pittance, which 
his mother had left him as a last instance of her 
affection ; little thinking of the immense conse- 
quence this trifle was to become to her beloved son. 
The heir at law entered upon the enjoyment of his 
immense fortune without casting a thought upon 
the unfortunate Langley; or, if he did think of 
him, it was only with that vulgar triumph which a 
low mind enjoys over its superior in intellect and 
acquirements. One thing he did, which, while it 
displayed his own meranness, dkl poetical justice on 
the steward. With his knowledge of attorneyship, 
we will not call it law, he had contrived by some 
quibble to invalidate the bond for ten thousand 
pounds ; and leaving Turner his ill-gotten gains, 
dismissed him from his service without the pro- 
mised reward. 

Langley lost the severity of his disappointment 
in the bosom of his wife, who bore it with a forti- 
tude which nothing but affection can bestow. Her 
husband was all to her, and though mortified at the 
necessity for the concealment of their marriage, 
which Langley still urged, until he had obtained 
some employment that would enable them to ap-^ 


THE OXONIANS. 


22 


pear with respectability,* she acquiesced without a 
murmur. 

However modestly or meritoriously he may have 
used prosperity, the man who suddenly meets a 
reverse is sure to find many who rejoice in his fall; 
why, we will not pretend to say, perhaps it is 
human nature, and we are sorry for it. 

Langley was, however, so much liked that he 
was generally pitied ; and his fate was the more 
lamented, as it was well known that the man who 
had come into possession of his fortune, was one 
not at all likely to give the dinners, and keep the 
hospitable house that l^angley would have done. 
This was therefore a fortune lost to the eating 
public, or dinners-out at large, to be centered in 
one individual. 

If words and professions could give consolation, 
Langley would have been amply consoled. Having 
a buoyant spirit, however, it rose above misfortune : 
he had talents, and he determined to employ them; 
a large and powerful connexion, and he resolved to 
avail himself of it. Alas ! how little did he think 
that those, so profuse of their offers of service 
when he did not want it, would be among the first 
to refuse their assistance now that he required it. 
Both himself and his wife felt the necessity for his 
keeping up his standing in the society in which he 
had been used to move ; as this seemed to be the 
only chance of getting, through the influence of 
friends, an appointment of some sort or other ; for 
the education afforded by Eaton and Oxford had 
rather unfitted, than fitted him, for the real busi- 
ness of life* 




CHAPTER VIII. 

A WIFE. 

Langley’s loss of fortune would have thrown 
any other man, perhaps, out of the pale of that so- 
ciety in which we have found him ; since it had 
been his wealth and not his rank that had given 
him pretensions to it. Langley, however, was ge- 
nerally liked ; and he possessed a buoyancy of 
spirit, and a temper too sanguine to permit him- 
self to be at once depressed by misfortune. His 
habits were also too much formed on the models 
of that society for him easily to change them ; and 
the hope that he might derive some good from pre- 
serving his high connexions, gave him a very rea- 
sonable excuse for continuing to cultivate them. 
One half of mankind does not know how the other 
half lives ; neither does it care ; as long as the mi- 
sery and poverty of the unhappy moiety is never 
intruded upon the comforts and splendor of the 
more fortunate half. 

We do not care how poor the man is who makes 
himself agreeable at our table, while he keeps his 
poverty to himself and does not trouble us with it. 
We care not how empty a man’s purse is, provided 
he does not ask us to replenish it ; or how severe 
the wants of our companions may be, so long as 
we are not asked to relieve them. 

^ This appears to be but a sorry picture of human 


nature; but it will be found in most instatu-es 
true one. Each of us expects in his own j>arti 
cular case, to find it otherwise ; and experience is 
the only touchstone that discovers the truth. 

Langley had not yet made this experiment. In 
spite of his off-hand manner, a great portion of 
self-possession, and many of those qualities whicii 
make what is called a “ dashing character,” he had 
a fund of innate modesty, as well as of deep and 
sensitive feeling, which made him shrink from ask- 
ing a favor ; yet it was with this view only that 
he concealed his marriage, and kept in society. 
His Oxford education had fitted him for no particu- 
lar pursuit, and he found himself thrown upon the 
world, fortuneless and useless ; whereas, had he 
possessed the accomplishments of a common school- 
boy, in book-keeping and arithmetic; or any use- 
ful knowledge of the commerce of his country ; 
a hundred situations might have been open to him 
through the commercial connexions, of his late 
father. But with them Latin and Greek wero 
useless; and the Italian method of book-keeping 
was more valued, than all the Italian literature, 
from Dante down to Sismondi. 

Langley had depended much upon his literary 
talents, but they were of too light a nature to 
rank hi-s name in the ahstruser pursuits of litera- 
ture ; and there was then no Colburn to cater 
with a liberal hand for the mere entertainment of 
the “ reading public.” 

He attempted a tragedy; but one manager dis- 
missed him with many thanks for its perusal, say- 
ing, “ That it was — realy — a very good play — • 
much eflect — great talent — would not suit his 
house ; but the very thing for the other.” 

To the other manager he applied : but here 
tragedy was out of fashion. 

In despair, and building his hopes on the opinion 
of the first manager he ventured to plead; and in plea- 
ding, detailed the past misfortunes and the present 
misery which drove him to the drama as a resource. 

The manager eyed him with a glance of pity. 
“You’d better write a farce sir, and I’ll act it;” 
said he, and dismissed the petitioner. 

“ Write a farce,” thought Langley, as he wend- 
ed his disconsolate steps homeward ; “ write a 
farce ; with poverty staring me in the face ; my wife’s 
cheeks growing paler and thinner every day ; my 
child half-starved ; my whole circle surrounded by 
misery, and write a farce !” 

The thing seemed impossible ; but Langley was 
wrong ; most farces have been written under simi- 
lar circumstances. The jokes that have appeared 
the spontaneous result of wit, have been the coin- 
age of sheer necessity. The scenes th-at had con- 
vulsed an audience with laughter have been pen- 
ned amid the convulsions of disease and poverty. 
Puns have been the offspring of a prison, and the 
jocund song or buoyant scene have been invented 
in the midst of ruined hopes and overwhelming 
misfortunes. 

Langley’s spirit was, however, of that elastic 
kind, that, like Indian-rubber, it rose again in spite t-j 
of all the rubs it received ; and one scheme only 
failed, to be succeeded by another. Mrs. Langley, 
who, to a very fine mind, united a great portion 
of the much more useful quality — common sense ; 
of which, by-the-by, one ounce is of far more uti 
lity than all the genius that ever blaaed in the 


THE OXONIANS. 


23 


page of poetry, or lay buried in that of science ; 
saw with sorrow this tendency of her husband to 
pursue splendid phantoms instead of humble reali- 
ties. She wdshed much to detach him from the 
scenes of gay life, which only rendered their own 
more wretched by the contrast; although she too 
saw the advantage which might be made by his 
connexions, provided Langley would try them, and 
they should prove willing to assist him. 

Their morning’s conversation was generally 
turned either upon some disaf)pointed scheme of 
the yesterday, or some projected one of the mor- 
row ; occasionally interspersed with anecdotes of 
the party of the preceding evening by Langley, 
and urgent entreaties on the part of his wife to 
make use of tho.se great friends who composed 
them. O". the morning in question, over their 
humble muffin and souchong, unaccompanied by 
the varied etceteras which cover a modern break- 
fast-table, their colloquy took the usual turn. 

“ Why, as you say, my love,” said Langley, in 
reply to some observation of his wife, “ it does 
seem a little too bad, that I should figure away at 
gay parties, and keep you cooped up here in a 
second floor, under a false name ; but you know it 
is all for our good, and the moment success crowns 
1 any of my schemes you shall be repaid for all.” 

1 Ah ! my dear Charles, do not think I complain 
of your pleasures, or that I covet any other than 
those I find in your society, and in the smiles of 
' our dear infant. They are sufficient to satisfy the 
heart of a loving wife and an affectionate mother. 
But—” 

“ Ay,” interrupted Langley ; “ now there is one 
of your killing ‘ buts/ You go on, my love, in 
the smoothest way in the world; saying the kind- 
est, the sweetest, and the most cheering things; 
and then comes that odious monosyllable which I 
hale. — ‘ But !’ The word ought to be expunged 
I from our language. — < But !’ ’tis such an inelegant 
! word too I wonder my darling Fanny can use 
j it.” Mrs. Langley sighed ; and Langley conti- 
nued, “ Come, come ; don’t be low-spirited ; I see 
* a thousand hopes for the future.” 

“ But what use is it, my dear Charles,” asked 
Mrs, Langley, “ to look to the future when the 
present almost overwhelms us?” 

‘‘ Why, to be sure, I must confess, my dear 
Fanny, that the present is not very alluring. A 
portion of our chairs and tables has moved off, as 
though they were animal instead of vegetable 
quadrupeds. Our equipage is such as nature has 
provided for us with the rest of mankind ; water is 
our common beverage ; and tea serves us for cham- 
pagne. Yet, depend on it, something will turn up 
yet ; some of my plans must succeed at last.” 

Oh, as to your plans, my dearest Charles, 
I have no longer any hope from them. Remember 
your play from which you were to make a for- 
I tune.” 

. “ True, the manager would not act it.” 

t “ Then your poem, which was to provide for me 
r and my child for life ?” 

( “Ay,” added Langley, “and procure me a 
lodging in Poet’s corner after my death.” 

81“ Why, the bookseller would not even read it.” 

! ; “There, my Fanny, was the misfortune: had he 
read it, he would have published it; and it would 

. have done all I predicted from it” 

s 


“ Oh Charles, Charles ! with your education 
what might you not do; what might it not fit 
you for !” 

“ There, my love, you are mistaken. The fact 
is, my education has unfitted me for every thing. 
A college is well enough to enable a man to dawdle 
through existence, and to color his conversation with 
quotations from the classics. I certainly am a 
most unlucky wight. If I were at the bar, I dare 
say there would not be a soul litigious enough to 
give me a brief. If I turned tradesman, the article 
I dealt in would no doubt go out of fashion ; and I 
verily believe the greatest good I could do my 
country would be to set up physician ; since, you 
may depend upon it, all the world would be 
healthy, to prevent me getting into practice.” 

“ But these powerful friends,” said Mrs. Lang- 
ley, “who invite you so often. Surely, if you 
were to tell them that you were a husband, a 
father, and in want, they would do something 
for you.” 

“ The very thing, my love, to prevent them. It 
#is only for those who want nothing that they are 
willing to do every thing. And did they know 
how very poor I am, and that I lived perched up 
in a second floor, it is ten to one if they would 
speak to me.” 

“ Oh Charles, Charles ! this false pride will be 
your ruin. Oh ! by all the affection which my 
heart feels for you, and which you profess for me ; 
by the smiles of our innocent babe ; by the remem- 
brance of that kindness to my ruined parents, 
which first won my love ; let me conjure you to 
overcome this false delicacy, and to make some 
struggle to rescue us from the poverty which 
threatens us.” 

“ But, then, Fanny, to tell them I am so very 
poor; that the result of my father’s dying intestate 
has quite ruined me; to tell them that the wit 
which has set their tables in a roar emanates from 
a broken heart — ” 

“ Nay, Charles, poverty is only a disgrace, when 
it is the consequence of neglect or crime. Not 
when it is produced by misfortune, and supported 
with resignation : surely none can be so cold- 
hearted as to bask in the sunshine of wit, and 
neglect the necessities of him who exerts it for 
their entertainment ” 

“ It is too generally the case though. Man is a 
selfish animal, contented with the surface, — but 
Fanny you have inspired me. I will this very day 
summon courage and remind a noble peer, who has 
treated me with distinguished kindness, of his pro- 
mise to befriend me.” 

“ Now that’s my dear Charles.” 

“Yes, I will; so wipe away your tears, and 
recall one of those captivating smiles which first 
bewitched me into becoming your husband before I 
was certain of the stability of my fortunes. And 
yet I thought I was certain; for I never would 
have asked my Fanny to partake of the miseries 
of iny poverty, although I should have been proud 
to have shared the luxuries of my wealth with 
her.” 

“ But in case you fail, may I not try to soften 
the heart of my uncle ] I see by the papers that 
he is arrived in town.” 

“ No, Fanny. I could not bear you to ask as- 
sistance from that hardhearted relation, who«e 


24 


THE OXONIAI^S. 


name you have ever forborne to mention to me, on 
account of my indignation at his total desertion of 
your angelic mother. — Besides, what affection can 
he have for one whom he has never seen? I want 
to be dependent upon nothing but my own exer- 
tions. I do not wish to be a drone in the busy 
hive of society, and should blush to ask for a place 
where the labor was not adequate to the emolu- 
ment. Come, Fanny, give rne a kiss ; I will be off 
to the clubs : I shall meet there with many a man 
in power, and will watch a favorable opportunity 
of preferring ray suit.” So saying, away went 
Langley to his morning’s lounge at the clubs, or 
his stroll up Bond street and St. James’s: where 
he never wanted a companion to laugh at his jokes 
or enjoy his conversation ; but as to friends — c’est 
toute autre chose. 

His wife turned with a sigh to her domestic oc- 
cupations, fully aware of the difficulties which pride 
threw in the way of her husband’s making any ap- 
plication to his friends, and of appearing a petition- 
er where he had always hitherto been an equal. 
Yet she did not blame him. She knew his good 
qualities; she knew how difficult a task it is for the 
pride of human nature to bend to solicitation, after 
it has once been used to command ; and these 
thoughts, helped by her extreme affection, form- 
ed excuses for the culpable delay of Langley. 

Much, however, as she dreaded giving her hus- 
band offence, she still revolved in her own mind the 
possibility of an ap})lication to her uncle Admiral 
Frankley. Her mother fiad been his favorite sis- 
ter, though she had excited his anger by marrying Mr. 
Palmer against the consent of her family, yet his 
affection for her had been so great in her earlier 
life, that Mrs. Langley thought it nearly impossible 
fi)r him entirely to discard her daughter. The pa- 
pers had announced Admiral Frankley’s return 
from India, and Mrs. Langley determined to find 
some opportunity of addressing him, either person- 
ally or by letter ; but she knew this must be done 
secretly, and without the knowledge of her hus- 
band ; and though upon any other subject she would 
have shuddered at acting contrary to his wishes, 
yet on the present occasion she felt it to be her 
duty to attempt the reparation of her husband’s for- 
tunes, Pwen by means which he would disap- 
prove. 

She had herself too great an idea of the miseries 
of dependence not to make some allowance for the 
pride of her husband ; and she felt by anticipation 
the pleasure that would be hers, should her assist- 
ance ever help to relieve their present difficulties. 

But we must leave Mrs. Langley to her rumina- 
tions, and Langley to his clubs, to turn our atten- 
tion to some of the more active personages of the 
drama. 



CHAPTER IX. 

kxONDON LIFE, 

Lady Orville was not a woman to undertake 
charge of bringing out a young lady without 


some ulterior views ; for her house was always too 
attractive to the wmrld at large to require the addi- 
tional motive of a new person, or a great heiress as 
an inmate. 

Orville House was conducted upon too extensive 
a scale to exhibit in the morning any traces of the 
numerous assembly which had graced its saloons 
the previous evening. Every servant was at his 
post ; every room in the same order ; all the nick- 
knackeries of fashion and virtue arranged precisely 
in their ordinary places ; and long before the in- 
mates had quitted their beds, the mansion had re- 
sumed its usual appearance. One of these inmates 
was the only person who exhibited in her languid 
countenance, the absence of sleep, and the ennui, 
that perpetual accompaniment of subsiding excite- 
ment; and this was Emily Hartley. Unused to 
scenes of such gayety and bustle ; unaccustomed to 
any thing but the domestic hours and occupations 
of Hartley Grove ; her little head had been bewil- 
dered by the numbers, and almost turned by the 
flattering attention she had received. During the 
continuance of the party, she almost imagined her- 
self in fairy land ; the brilliance of the lights, the 
splendor of the apartments, the excellence of the 
music, of which she was passionately fond, together 
with the admiration she had evidently excited, had 
altogether bewildered her young imagination, and 
made her for the moment think that all her antici- 
pations of delight had been realized. 

Her hand had been w ught for quadrilles by all 
the men of fashion who condescended to dance; 
and in high society, as well as that of a more hum- 
ble cast, this is a matter of more concern to them, 
than ladies are generally willing to admit. Be- 
tween the dances, she had rested herself in the 
music-room, listening to the best airs of Mozart and 
Rossini, sung by the most celebrated singers of 
the day. 

What a contrast between the tranquil evenings 
of Hartley Grove ; the disquisitions of Forrester 
and her father ; the quiet conversation of her 
mother; and the saloons of Orville House, filled 
with all the rank, fashion, and talent to the 
country. 

Lord Orville too, the gay, the elegant, the fasci- 
nating Orville, had also paid her the most sedulous 
attention ; had not only danced with her twice, a 
most uncommon circumstance with him, but had 
acted as her Asmodeus of the evening, and pointed 
out every body who was worth knowing in the 
rooms: and modern history has been so replete 
with wonderful events in which our contemporaries 
have been actors, that one scarcely enters an 
assembly, in which there are not many who have 
been celebrated by their actions, and whose names 
will not shine in the page of the history of our own 
times. Orville, however, did not confine his observa- 
tions and anecdotes to mere public men ; he pointed 
out those who derived their celebrity for the lesser 
attributes of beauty, fashion, or folly ; and judging 
of Emily’s mind by that of the many females whom 
he knew, he seasoned his anecdotes with just 
enough scandal and satire to give them that pi- 
quancy, witnout which the most brilliant conversa- 
tion is ennuyant to the class and tastes of many a 
modern historian and reader. 

Such particular attention from a man like Orville 
was quite sufficient to bring Emily into notice^ 


THE OXONIANS. 


25 


and, added to the attraction of a very beautiful 
person, and an entirely new face, it was no wonder 
she became “the sensation” of the evening. 

The men inquired, “ Who the lovely girl was 
to whom Orville was so devoted?” while the 
women wondered “ what Orville could see in such 
a country-looking person, to pay her so much 
attention.” 

The gentlemen declared her hair auburn, the 
ladies that it was more inclined to red. Her blue 
eyes were declared quite the ne plus ultra by the 
former; by the latter to be insipid; the men swore 
her fair complexion was lovely ; while the women 
declared, there was too much of the “milk and 
water” of human nature in it to permit expression. 

But whatever might be the secret opinions upon 
Emily’s pretensions to beauty, all the men wished 
to dance with her, and all the women envied her; 
nor were these feelings diminished when it was 
known that she was the daughter of one of the 
oldest and most respectable families in the country, 
and the certain possessor of a very large fortune. 

Seeing only the admiration she excited, and 
dazzled by the attention she received, no wonder 
that the young and unsophisticated mind of Emily 
should be delighted. She saw the world merely 
on its surface, and it was all smiles and sunshine. 
She saw many eyes fixed upon her, and she per- 
ceived only the admiration they expressed, and was 
totally unconscious of the envy which she elicited, 
and though this in many instances forms more than 
half of the pleasure of being admired, Emily was 
not yet sufficiently refined to mingle it in her 
draught of pleasure. Indeed, we are not certain 
whether at this period, Emily would not have been 
gothic enough to have 'permitted such an idea to 
have considerably allayed the delight she ex- 
perienced. 

Although Emily had been taken to several minor 
parties, this had been the first grand assembly at 
which she had been present; and the comparison 
rendered all the others insipid. This perhaps had 
arisen more from the consequence which had been 
given to herself by all the attention paid her, than 
from any real difference. For in the main all par- 
ties are alike, and we derive more or less pleasure 
from them, accordingly as we feel our own conse- 
quence more or less diminished or increased by the 
occurrences of the evening. Such creatures of self 
are we all ! 

The delight which Emily experienced, made her 
watch the movements of the large French clock, 
which graced the chimney-piece of the saloon, with 
regret. The minutes and hours had never passed 
so rapidly; she could scarcely believe that some 
other hand than that of time had not moved the 
dial-plate. But tumultuous pleasures are great 
killers of time, as well as of every thing else ; and 
what had appeared as minutes to Emily, had 
actually been so many hours abstracted from the 
short span of her existence. 

It was with a feeling of sorrow that she saw the 
party diminish in number, and guest after guest 
depart, till the final break-up of the assembly. 

She then sought her dressing-room, where her 
maid, quite as unaccustomed as herself to the bustle 
of a town life, was wrapped in such a profound 
sleep on the sofa, that she could scarcely rouse her- 
self lo give the necessary attention to her young 


mistress. The really country wide-mouthed gapes 
with which the Abigal entertained her, during the 
time of her making her “ toilette de nuit,” com- 
municated to Emily the first disposition for, and 
thoughts of sleep which she had experienced during 
the whole evening; although she had seen with 
surprise many a gay personage, in the midst of an 
apparently animated conversation, conceal an inci- 
pient yawn. She was not then aware how soon 
such scenes pall upon the senses; how soon the 
heart gets used to their insipidity; and that they 
are only sought by the many, merely to kill the time 
which they hi^'e not sufficient resources in them- 
selves to pass more profitably and more pleasantly. 

Oh thoughtless time-killers! how little do you 
know the value of the hours you are throwing 
away ! how little do you anticipate the day which 
comes too soon for all of us, when we would sacri- 
fice our whole fortunes to the power of recalling 
even a few of those moments which in their pro- 
gress have appeared so tedious. 

Emily, while in the ball-room, had thought sleep 
impossible ; she imagined that her limbs would 
never tire in the quadrille ; her mind never become 
satiated with the scene ; and as she first pressed 
her pillow, she thought she had enough to recollect, 
and to lay up in her memory, to keep her awake. 

With the excitement, however, her strength also 
passed away. It was in vain that she pictured to 
herself the gay scene; the lights would burn dim, 
and the dancers become shadowy before her closing 
eyes, till she sunk into a deep though feverish 
slumber, with one of Orville’s insiduous compli- 
ments half finished in her failing memory. 

The next morning found her unrefreshed, and 
quite oppressed by that lassitude, the never-failing 
consequence of over-excitement. Her mind had 
lost its elasticity; she no longer dwelt upon the 
occurrences of the evening with the pleasure that 
she had anticipated in her remembrances of them, 
and she involuntarily drew a comparison between 
her waking hours here at mid-day, and the healthful 
hilarity which had attended her morning rising at 
Hartley Grove, There the lark was not blither, 
and not very often earlier than herself; there she 
was welcomed by the feathered choristers of her 
garden, by the opening bftds of flowers planted by 
her own hands, and by the smiles of protegees 
owing their existence and their happiness to herself 
and her family. Now the only person she had 
been accustomed to see, brought her coffee, with a 
face pale from nightly watching. Poor Mrs. Tom- 
kins sunk much sooner under the effect of the 
London hours than her mistress, and, beginning by 
observing that Miss Emily “ was not at all the 
moral of what she was in the country,” indulged 
herself in a long tirade against London dissipation 
and London servants ; indeed the poor girl, with 
her primitive notions, had been such a capital butt 
for the exercise of the wit at the second table, that 
she had enjoyed no peace since her arrival ; and 
nothing but her love for her young lady would have 
tempted her to stay a moment longer in a house 
where much more of the real “ goings on,” as Mrs. 
Tomkins called them, was known to herself than 
to her mistress. As Emily, however, became re- 
freshed by her coffee, the elasticity of her mind 
returned, and the pleasures of a gay life again 
assumed their ascendency over her imagination. 


26 


THE OXONIANS. 


The plans which will he developed as our history 
proceeds, had no chance for success, while Emily’s 
mind still remained attached to the pursuits of the 
country, and to the species of life she had quitted. 
The whole power of Lady Orville, her son and 
daughter, were therefore devoted to wean her from 
her early predilections, to cast a shade of ridicule 
over her early pursuits, and to bestow upon the 
pleasures of a town life such a blazonry as would 
give all the former enjoyments of her existence no 
character hut that of insipidity. 

M rs. Tomkins, in her rustic blunt way, had de- 
tailed that Lord Orville’s servant bud sworn to her 
that his master was already madly in love with her 
young mistress, “To be sure,” added she, “ there 
is no wonder in that ; for I myself should be in love 
with you, if I were a man, which heaven forbid 
should ever he the case, for they have a world of 
sin, the very best of them, to carry to their graves. 
But though Lord Orville is called the finest man of 
the day, I think him no more to compare to Mr. 
Forrester, than Mounseer Fripon, my lord’s French 
vallet, is to my Thomas, your sweetheart’s hunts- 
man. Oh how I wish I could hear his dear horn, 
and his so-ho, so-ho, again.” 

Emily stopped the prating of her waiting-maid 
by dismissing her suddenly with a sharp reprimand 
for having made her the subject of conversation in 
the steward’s room; and poor Mrs. Tomkins retir- 
ed, surprised at seeing, for the first time in her life, 
that her young mistress was seriously displeas- 
ed. 

“ Ah ! it is all along of this smoky London air,” 
said she, as she shut the door, and cast an angry 
glance at the foggy atmosphere without. 

Her words, however, had made a deeper impres- 
sion than Emily herself was willing to allow. The 
contrast between the acquired elegance of Lord Or- 
ville and the rustic ease though good manners of 
Forrester, had more than once forced themselves 
Uj)on her imagination ; and she had several times 
detected herself in drawing a compacison between 
the fashionable and sprightly, and sometimes bril- 
liant conversation of the town-bred peer, and the 
more solid, though less striking observations of a 
country gentleman. 

“ The finest man of the day !” True, thought 
she. Lord Orville does indeed bear that character. 
“ In love with me !” and her vanity, at least for a 
moment was pleased with the idea. And what 
woman, perfect as ever human nature will permit 
her to be, is without a share of vanity] “No — 
no, no, it cannot be and she paused, even in her 
thoughts, to debate upon the possibility of such an 
event ; and again, as she drew a comparison be- 
tween her own rusticity and the manners of the fa- 
shionable women to whose society he had been 
used, and by whom he was surrounded, her humil- 
ity set it down as an impossibility. Still, however, 
she could not drive the idea from her mind, and she 
was obliged to recall to her memory that it had 
only been engendered by the prattle of a servant, 
before she could banish it entirely. 

At this moment Clara Dallas, a cousin of the 
Orville family, and a ward of the late earl’s, enter- 
ed the dressing room ; she had retired from the par- 
ty of the preceding evening much earlier than Emi- 
ly, and had therefore not broken so much in upon 
her day to recover from its fatigues. 


Clara Dallas was one of those few young ladie 
in whose minds and imagination romance had no 
place. Ungifted by nature with any extraordinary 
beauty of person, she was liked by her companions, 
because she never outshone them in that upon 
which woman are too apt to pride themselves; and 
they thought little of that superior good sense which 
she possessed, because it seldom intruded itself upon 
their notice ; or, if observed, only excited their rid- 
icule. 

Clara had no imagination, but she had a fund of 
good sense. 8he looked upon life as a reality, and 
indulged herself in no dreams of pleasure which did 
not exist; but this way of looking at society had 
given a matter of fact frankness to her conversation, 
which sometimes destroyed the fine flourishing ti- 
rades of more brilliant colloquists. 

She had often been a guest at Hartley Grove, 
had conceived a great aflection for Emily, and had 
become interested in the character of Mr. Forrester, 
which she saw in all its excellence, and knew well 
how to appreciate. Yet, with all this she some- 
times feared that his influence over so gay a mind 
as Emily’s, might not be sufficient to counteract 
the flattery by which she was surrounded in the 
great work! to which she had so suddenly been in- 
troduced. 

Entering^the room in her own quiet way, (for 
Clara never did any thing in a hurry or hustle, and 
never acted under excitement,) Emily did not at 
first perceive her ; and Clara accordingly had an 
opportunity of witnessing the abstraction of coun- 
tenance with which her previous thoughts had been 
accompanied. 

“ What, Emily : she at length exclaimed, and 
Emily started, blushing, as though her thoughts 
had been words, and had been overheard. “ What, 
musing! That looks rather suspicious. Take 
care, my dear, lest the influence of our friend For- 
rester should be shaken by the sight of our more 
fashionable, fiut less praiseworthy beaux of 8t. 
James’s.” 

“ Oh, I have still the same friendship for Mr. For- 
rester, I assure you,” slowly and blushingly an- 
swered Emily, internally astonished at this coinci- 
dence between the observation of Clara and her 
own thoughts. 

“Friendship!” repeated Clara, thoughtfully, and 
looking so intently in Emily’s face that she turned 
her eyes away from her gaze. “ Ah, Emily, beware 
how you suffer the tinsel glitter of brilliant talents 
and polished manners to outshine the more solid, 
though more modest, virtues of a good heart and 
sound understanding.” 

“Nay now, my dear Clara,” replied Emily, 
“ you are too severe. Brilliant talents are not in- 
compatible with virtue, nor does wit betray the 
want of understanding ; neither are polished man- 
ners necessarily accompanied by hypocrisy. x4nd 
you must certainly acknowledge, my dear matter- 
of-fact Clara, that Mr. Forrester’s manners and ac- 
complishments, excellent as they are, can scarcely 
be put in competition with the wit and elegance by 
which I am now surrounded.” 

“ I will not acknowledge any such thing,” re- 
joined Clara. “Edward Forrester’s modesty has 
little chance, it is true, amid the blaze of imperti- 
nence which is dignified with the title of wit ; his 
talents may not be able to cope with success in 


THE OXONIANS. 


27 


-fashionable conversations, but they will shine in ra- 
tional ones ; and that is of much more consequence 
to domestic happiness.” 

“But yet you must allow,” argued Emily, “how 
very many are his superiors in manners; and man- 
ners, you know, Clara, give a polish even to trifles. 
Now when Lord Orville enters a room, or pays a 
compliment, or utters a sentence, there is a grace 

which which ” and Emily hesitated at 

finding that she was actually imbodying those 
thoughts which she had been just now so anxious 
to conceal — “ which,” she again repeated 

“ Which can so dazzle us by its varnish that we 
do not perceive the worthlessness of what it covers,” 
continued Clara, finishing the sentence for her 
friend. “Your candor betrays you; but beware 
how you suffer yourself to be misled by the glitter 
of an ignis fatuus, in the pursuit of which many 
have lost their happiness, and more than one their 
honor.” 

“ You almost alarm me. Yet I do not quite un- 
derstand you,” exclaimed Emily, looking anxiously 
for an explanation. 

“ I wish to do so ; T am myself alarmed, both for 
Forrester and yourself, at the evident attentions 
which are paid you in a certain quarter. My long 
friendship induces this anxiety for your happiness; 
and your hitherto total exclusion from the world 
authorizes me to tell you, that Lord Orville, under 
the brilliant talents and the most fascinating man- 
ners, conceals — ” 

“ Hush,” exclaimed Emily; and they both be- 
came silent as ^the door opened, and Lady So- 
phia, his lordship^s unmarried sister, entered the 
room. 

“Oh, my darling Emily,” exclaimed she; but 
stopped short in her address, on perceiving Clara’s 
and Emily’s anxious countenances. “ Why Clara,” 
continued she, “ what are you doing with my sweet 
ipupill I sha’n’t suffer any of your gravities to 
cloud her mind, and deaden the enjoyment of her 
entrance into gay life. Why, you’ve made her 
pout already, I declare.” 

“No, Sophia ; but I have been trying, I own, to 
enable her inexperience to distinguish truth from 
the quantity of fiction by which she was sur- 
rounded,” answered Clara ; “ however, I now 
leave her in the hands of her more lively cha- 
perone. But, my dear Emily, amid the brilliancy 
of her sallies, do not quite forget the word of advice 
that I have given you; and which, if not very 
palatable, has at least the merit of being well in- 
tended.” And so saying, she left the room. 

Lady Sophia accompanied her good morning 
with a haughty toss of the head, which was un- 
perceived by Emily. She saw in a minute, by the 
countenance of the latter, that Clara had been 
counteracting some of her brother’s plots, and that 
she had most probably been warning her against 
his character. Imagining this, she determined to 
eradicate any impression Emily might have im- 
bibed, before it should obtain a deeper hold upon 
her mind. 

“Poor Clara,” said she, with a sigh; “I really 
pity her from my soul ; but then, you know, young 
women should not surrender their hearts before 
they are solicited. I dare say now she has been 
complaining to you of the cruelty of my brother. — 
But it is all pique — ” 


“Pique!” exclaimed Emily. 

“ Oh yes. Didn’t you know that she took it 
into her head to think of Orville; but finding him 
insensible, has almost haled him ever since.” 

“ Haled him !” again exclaimed Emily, as her 
knowledge of Clara’s meek and placid character 
rose to her imagination. 

“Yes,” reiterated Lady Sophia; “you know 
Ezra says, 

‘ Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turn’d, 

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorn’d 

and you know poets always tell truth.” 

“This then,” thought Emily, “ accounts for her 
advice ; and I need not alarm myself.” 

“ But away with the splenetic lessons of Clara,” 
continued Lady Sophia, “which always fall like a 
lump of lead upon the quicksilver of my spirits. 
What think you of our party last night]” 

“ Oh, delightful !” 

“Such a squeeze; wasn’t it] Sir Scamper 
Tandem swore he could get no farther than the 
first landing; my poor beau Shatterham absolutely 
stuck in the hall ; young Twistleton was cooled 
after the first quadrille by a pine-apple ice that was 
tossed into his cambric-colored bosom by the old 
Lord Adlington ; and the Duchess of Crambo’s 
magnificent brocade, just imported from Genoa, 
was entirely spoiled by a glass of champaigne 
which Sir Peter Dashley poured over her instead 
of into his own capacious stomach. — But here — 
here’s a list of engagements for you — ” 

“ For me !” exclaimed Emily. 

“Oh yes; a whol#^ pack of cards, T declare. 
Why, my dear, you’re a novelty, and have abso- 
lutely created a sensation. I quite envy you (and 
here Lady Sophia spoke truth.) Wherever you go, 
‘ Who is she?’ will be buzzed in your ears from a 
thousand different quarters ; and you will have the 
pleasure of hearing yourself described as a most 
intimate acquaintance by a thousand puppies who 
never set eyes on you before.” 

“ But from whom are these cards ]” inquired 
Emily. 

“ Oh from a hundred kind friends who never saw 
you before in their lives. Here’s Lady Alting- 
ham’s routs for Mondays; the Countessa Paulina’s 
opera suppers for Tuesdays ; the Honorable Mrs. 
Dashwood’s concerts for Wednesdays; the old 
Marquis of Eatington’s dinners for Thursdays; 
the Duchess of Langton’s quadrilles for Fridays; 
Mrs. Von Brommel’s early at homes for Saturdays; 
and the Countess of Chatterton’s conversazioni for 
Sundays ; that being a day on which it is deemed 
that all innocent amusements shall cease, excepting 
cards and scandal.” 

“ Bless me, my dear Lady Sophia ! why I shall 
be killed—” 

“ Killed !” repeated Lady Sophia. “Oh no, my 
dear. It takes a great deal of dissipation to kill a 
woman : at least if one may judge from the manner 
in which it agrees with so many of our dowagers, 
who have not only served an apprenticeship, but 
devoted a whole life to its pursuit. But these are 
only the regulars; we have fifty supernumerary 
parties on the list. To-day, for instance, we have 
a dinner at the Honorable Mr. Rattall’s, M. P. and 
reformist; who, during the war, railed at our ene- 
mies in the Senate, while he added to their revenue 


28 


THE OXONIANS 


by getting tipsy with their wines in his dining 
parlor ; who appeared a patriot in his eloquence 
abroad, while he was any thing but patriotic in his 
pursuits at home. There, the wines of our foes 
sparkled upon the table, while those of our allies 
were banished to his sideboard and his steward’s 
room; and the humble, though hearty beverage of 
©Id England was confined to the kitchen and the 
cellar. He is perpetually roaring out for liberty 
abroad, while poor Mrs. Rattall and her family are 
never permitted to enjoy a particle of it at home.” 

Upon my word, I begin to think Clara right in 
warning me against your powers of invention,” 
said Emily, laughing at her spirits and volubility. 

“Not at all, my dear Emily. But you will 
judge for yourself. There will be our host, sup- 
ported on either side by peers, peeresses, and 
messieurs, and mesdames, M. P.’s — for I assure 
you the wives seem to think themselves quite as 
much in Parliament as their husbands. There, all 
swallow the good things presented to their lips, 
without paying much attention to those that are 
intended for their ears. You will hear Mr. Rat- 
tall one moment say, ‘ Liberty of speech is every 
thing;’ while the next moment he cuts his wife 
short with, ‘ Really, Mrs. Rattall, I must insist on 
your keeping your arguments upon this subject to 
yourself,’ and so on. Well then, to-morrow, old 
Lady Vizard sees her friends in pasteboard.” 

“In pasteboard I” exclaimed Emily, with sur- 
prise, and with an inquiring look. 

“Ye,” replied Sophia. “In other words she 
sees masks for the benefit of many of her friends 
who are ashamed to show their faces.” 

“I shall then, indeed, be pleased,” said Emily; 
“for I have always wished to see a masquerade, 
and shall be delighted to see the characters well 
supported.” 

“Oh! my dear innocent, you were never more 
mistaken in your life than in such an expectation. 
It is too much trouble for many of them to support 
their own characters, and they seldom meddle with 
those of other people, excepting to take them away. 
A modern masquerade is merely a squeeze of 
dominos that mean nothing, and characters that 
don’t know what they mean ; such a crowd of 
harlequins without agility, nuns without devotion, 
Minervas without wisdom, and Venuses devoid of 
beauty, that you will be quite delighted, and have 
the pleasure of teazing your dearest friends and 
nearest relations with the chance of remaining 
undiscovered.” 

“ Very delightful, truly,” observed Emily. 

“ But fancy balls are the rage now, and masque- 
rades are exploded ; none but such an old dowager 
as Lady Vizard would think of giving one. The 
poor old lady remembers what they were twenty 

years ago, when, it is said but I will not be 

scandalous, at any rate upon people whose age 
leaves them no chance for any thing but repen- 
tance.” 

Emily shrank like a sensitive leaf from this last' 
observation of her lively companion, but hesita- 
tingly said, “ Well then, I think I shall like the 
conversazioni best after all. There, at any rate, 
amusement will be blended with instruction.” 

^ “ Instruction ! Oh, you delicious novice ; instruc- 
tion ! True, you may hear from the men a discus- 
lion of the chances for the next St. Leger or 


Derby; and from the women the comparative 
merits of an imbecille and seduisanU ; or which 
of these abominable excrescences is fittest for the 
morning or the evening. Old Lord Lumber-Court 
will tell you the [»recise way to curry a lobster, 
and Charles Huntley the best method of currying 
a horse. If anybody speaks of wit, criticism, or 
literature. Sir Frederick Tandem interrupts him 
with an essay on horsemanship, and speaks of his 
whippery^ as he calls it, as a natural historian 
would of his zoological or mineralogical collection: 
while Lady Trippington indulges herself with a 
dissertation on quadrilles, lauds Collinet’s 101st 
set to the skies, and praises the pas de chasse and 
pas de zephyr, without shrinking from the faux 
pas which certain little inuendos and initials in the 
newspaper attributed to her last season. But come, 
you look grave, tired, I dare say, with my rattle ; 
so go to your toilet. The horses will be here in 
half an hour; and with Orville and myself yr»’ 
shall gallop away the blue devils in the Park. 
And away ran the rattling Lady Sophia, leaving 
Emily bewildered by her volubility, and scarcely 
knowing whether to laugh or look grave at what 
certainly contained much amusement, though 
mingled with sentiments and allusions, from which 
the innate delicacy of Emily’s mind shrank with a 
feeling of disgust. She could join Lady Sophia in 
her laugh at the follies of the world of both sexes; 
but to hear any deviations from the right path by 
her own, treated with levity, and made the subject 
of amusement by a young lady, filled her with 
astonishment; and it required all the goodness of 
Emily’s nature to find an apology for this in the 
violent animal spirits of Lady Sophia Orville. 

Lady Sophia was one of those young women 
who have early given unbridled license to conversa- 
tion : cried up on her coming out as a wit, she 
frightened the men from proposals which might 
otherwise have been made for her; till disappoint- 
ed at seeing companions with less pretensions form- 
ing splendid establishments, while she remained 
Lady Sophia Orville, the bitterness of her nature 
gave its predominence to her character, and she 
became the satirist of vice and folly, without im- 
bibing a just contempt for the one, or a proper 
horror of the other. 

Vice and folly, however, were not the only ob- 
jects for her satire. The virtues of domestic life 
were quite as much subjects for her ridicule as the 
profligacy which destroyed them ; and she looked 
upon the woman who devoted herself to what she 
denominated the domestic drudgery of the “ house- 
hold gods,” merely as the slave of her husband 
and of prejudice. Educated without the benefit 
of example as well as precept; thrown very early 
into one of those fashionable establishments then 
in vogue for the tuition of young women ; a young 
and strong mind had been suffered to form itself; 
and a variety of desultory reading, without the 
power to discriminate, had produced the effect of 
giving her great ideas of her own judgment, and 
great contempt for the opinions of others. 

When, therefore, she had no game to play, and 
gave way to the natural bent of her disposition, 
she became this disputatious dasher, dictating laws 
to her little circle, astonishing every one with the 
boldness of her remarks, and frequently disgusting 
the most sensible of her hearers by sentiments ia 


THE OXONIANS. 


29 


morals and religion, that were any thing rather 
than those which should have emanated from a 
young female. 

Lady Sophia loved to astonish, and cared very 
little how much she displeased, unless she had an 
object in view ; and then Lady Sophia could veil 
her real character with the success of the most ex- 
perienced hypocrisy. She could he in appearance 
as exclusive and feminine, as she was in reality 
masculine and familiar, could freeze by her silence 
as well as astonish by her effrontery ; and when 
she wished it, could gain her object as well by in- 
sinuation, as on other occasions she could take it 
by storm. 

With all this she was greatly the fashion ; those 
who did not admire her feared her ; to be ranked 
among her intimates was the desire of most of 
those who frequented Orville House. Every man 
was delighted to dance vvitli her, to flirt with her, 
to hand her to her carriage, to do every thing, but 
— marry her. 



CHAPTER X. 


A CHARACTER, 

•The Countess of Orville, whenever she found 
those high passions which had been the bane of 
her life breaking through the bounds within which 
she had generally the power to preserve them in 
public, retired to the solitude of her own boudoir, 
until she could smooth her ruffled brow, and redress 
her face, in those bland smiles which gave such 
youthful grace to her matronly beauty, and which 
persuaded indifferent beholders that she was one 
of the best tempered, as well as one of the happiest 
women in the world. And who that saw her 
bright eyes sparkling with pleasure, her face cloth- 
ed in smiles, and heard the softness of her voice 
uttering the best sentiments of human nature in 
the most elegant language, would have imagined 
Lady Orville to be the woman she really was; or 
have thought that such a woman could realize 
Voltaire’s description of 

del est dans ses yeux, I’enfer est dans son coeur.” 

It was neverthless but too true. 

In the solitude of this boudoir she revolved all 
those schemes and plans of which her life had 
been one continued series. Love, ambition, hatred, 
and revenge had all by turns swayed the soul of 
tills violent woman by their influence ; and they 
were all equally fatal to the peace of the object by 
W'hom they were excited, or by whom they were 
to be gratified. 

As a wife, she had been paramount over the 
weak Earl whom her ambition had selected for a 
husband ; as a mother, she only looked to the in- 
crease of her own power by the splendid establish- 
ment of her children ; and as a woman, she gave 
unbi'idled license and indulgence to any and to 


every passion by which she was by turns in* 
fluenced. 

Lady Olivia Tressel, her youngest daughter, had 
been sacrificed at the shrine of the immense wealth 
of a dilapidated Nabob, who brought over millions 
of rupees from Calcutta, to render his jaundiced 
countenance and broken constitution more pala- 
table to any woman who might be purchased 
to share his fortune and his bed : and Lady Olivia 
had been literally purchased, since a portion of the 
gold for which she had been sacrificed was devoted 
to the payment of certain heavy mortgages which 
had for a long period of years weighed down the 
Orville estates. It required, however, all the arts 
of Lady Orville as a woman, and all her influence 
as a mother, to accomplish this sacrifice. Tears, 
threats, entreaties, representations, and misrepre- 
sentations were pressed into the service by mother, 
brother, and sister, till at length, hopeless of ever 
marrying the only man she loved, who had no 
other recommendation than an elegant person and 
fasernating manners. Lady Olivia gave a sullen 
consent, and became the unwilling and discon- 
tented bride of the tropical Mr. Tressel. 

The other children had imbibed too much of the 
mother’s character to be so easily led from their 
inclinations; but as there was no lack of ambition 
in either of them, and a plentiful sprinkling of 
pride in both their dispositions, it was not likely 
that either the one or the other would form esta- 
blishments which would be displeasing to her. 

Much, however, as Lady Orville was devoted to, 
and much as she seemed to court, the world, she 
internally despised that public opinion by which 
she regulated her outward conduct; and detested 
those trammels of society which condemned her to 
keep her fiery passions within the limits of appa- 
rent propriety, or to sacrifice the privileges of her 
rank and station. 

These had, more than once during her career, 
been in imminent danger of being forfeited ; and 
had only been preserved by consummate art and 
unabashed effrontery. 

While many a more innocent woman than Lady 
Orville had been “ whistled down the wind” by 
the scorn of a misjudging and unfeeling world, 
for a single fault (the result, perhaps, of man’s 
perfidy and woman’s credulity), Lady Orville, 
with a hundred more flagrant sins upon her con- 
science, still maintained her station, still joined 
the crowd in its contempt for the fallen of her sex, 
while the only circumstance that rendered them 
the object either of her anger or her pity, was 
their being “ found out.” 

Concealment was the only virtue she acknow- 
ledged ; passions might be indulged, and inclina- 
tions gratified, so long as the world knew nothing 
of the matter. Her code morale consisted in their 
not being discovered ; and I am afraid to think in 
how many minds it is not the fear of the sin, but 
of its consequences, that preserves from its com- 
mission. 

Lady Orville’s life was, therefore, one continued 
masquerade, one perpetual system of self-indul- 
gence, and of schemes for its concealment. There 
was but one person in the world to whom she ever 
threw away the mask, and gave a loose to the real 
sentiments of her soul. This was the Marchesa 


» 


30 


THE OXON[ANS. . 


di A^illanai, an English divorcee, married to a Flo- 
rentine nobleman. Caroline Delrnar and the Coun- 
tess had been school-fellows, and a congeniality of 
disposition had made them friends. 

They had both been married at the same time to 
men that neither of them loved. In the fahiess of 
female confidence this natural diskicliiiation to 
their husbands did not long retmfin a secret, any 
more than the results, wilich were the too natural 
consequences- of psSssion so ill regulated as theirs; 
atid to minds in which there had been no pains to 
instil those principles of rectitude which can only 
exist upon a sure basis, when they are founded 
upon the sentiments of religion. 

Her friend, however, either did not possess the 
art of the Countess, or despised the concealment 
which was the preservation of Lady Orville. She 
sat the w’orld at defiance by eloping with her para- 
mour; a divorce was the consequence; but dying 
to the shelter of the more lenient rnoralsiof tlie 
Continent, she contrived to get into good society, 
and, deserted by the man for whom she had sacri- 
ficed her good name, her fortune, which was in 
her own right, tempted a needy Italian Marquis to 
give her irregularities the countenance of his name, 
and to the cast off mistress, the title of his wife 

Lady Orville, the moment that intrigue became 
public, of which she had long been the confidant 
in private, was among the first and most vehement 
of the many declaimers against the unfortunate 
and guilty culprit, whose only difference from the 
Countess was, the being a more honest sinner than 
herself. 

But though she blamed her in the world for the 
crime, she upbraided her in private only for the 
« expose, which might so easily have been avoided 
ny the exertion of a little prudence. With these 
sentiments although she could not publicly ac- 
Knowledge Caroline still as a friend, she yet saw 
her in secret, while she remained in England, and 
Kept up an occasional and not unfrequent cor- 
respondence with her on the Continent. It was 
m these letters only that Lady Orville ventured to 
De herself, and at this moment she found a relief 
from her present feelings, by unbosoming herself 
to her friend in the following letter : — 

THE COUJTTESS OF ORVILLE TO THE MARCHESA 
DI VILLANAI. 

Once more, Caroline, do I take up my pen to 
address you, or rather to relieve myself, by throw- 
ing off the mask which all these little tramels of 
society compel me to wear, and once more at least 
to be myself. Oh, how tedious, how heart-wear- 
ing is this thraldom of life ! w'hat misery to be 
always thus a hypocrite. I really am half inclined 
to envy you that daring spirit which enabled you 
to burst these chains asunder, and fly to the enjoy- 
ment of your own opinions and freedom, in the 
more lenient and less fastidious circles of your dear 
Italy. And after all what did you give up 1 mere- 
ly an endless routine of chilling forms and cere- 
monies, at which we laughed in private, although 
we pretended to respect them in public ; merely 
that friendship and opinion of the “ thousand and 
one,’^ whose imbecility we despised ; and that 
caste in society here, which good fortune, your 


superior genius, and a convenient husband has pro 
cured for you elsewhere. 

It was certainly a fiery ordeal to pass through 
at first, but by one great sacrifice you have pur- 
chased freedom. What could a Roman do more? 
To be sure, the man for whom you made the sacri- 
fice of name and character, and all that to which 
the fiat of the silly world has given but a false es- 
timation, deserted you; first tempted and then 
quitted you ; vowed endless love and perpetual 
fidelity, and finished his eternity in a month. Oh ! 
these men, respected amid the indulgence of their 
unruly passions, they call ours into play by their 
sweet words “false as dicer’s oaths,” and then de- 
sert and despise us for the very credulity which 
has given them their power. Ought we to be 
blamed for deceiving them] Husbands, brothers, 
fathers, where is there one of them that has not 
been a betrayer in his time] Yet they move on 
unblushingly ! and win their way in the world 
with honor through a thousand acts, each one of 
which would cast a poor woman out of the pale 
of society for ever. And are we to be blamed for 
deceiving them ] for deceiving those whose greatest 
triumph is our fall; whose lists of conquests are 
made up of our shame; and who build their cele- 
brity upon our weakness] No, no, no; early cir- 
cumstances, as you are aware, gave me a long and 
bitter account against them ; and the longest life 
bestowed upon a woman would not enable me to 
balance it by the infliction of the half that I have 
endured. 

Oh, Arlington, what a different existence might 
I have passed, had I never known you ! or had 
you been faithful to those early vows which first 
called my heart and passions into existence ! Yet, 
what am I saying ] had that been the case, I might 
have turned into one of those very dull domestic 
drudges of their husbands’ will who are now the 
subjects of our ridicule ; what a crowd of ideas has 
not the mention of that name recalled ! our school- 
days, our vacations, our coming out, and all the 
thousand circumstances of childhood, rise to my 
imagination. Oh, those days of innocence ! yet 
were they happy ] But I have been revenged — 
if not upon him, upon the rest of his perfidious sex, 
for his sake ; and he, you know, is self-banished 
from the influence of my power. It is strange you 
should never have crossed him in Italy ; for there 
they say he lives under some assumed name — but 
to my plans, in which his name, if not himself, is 
involved. 

You know how many years an old school- 
fellow, Lady Emily Hartley, has been immured in 
the country. Well, like myself, she is now the 
mother of children grown into man and woman- 
hood. It is really frightful, my dear, to think 
how time passes, and what events it brings about 
I have always kept up my connexion with her by 
an annual visit to the Grove at Christmas : at first, 
I confess with a little malice in my intention, for I 
found it difficult to bear the sight of her continued 
happiness; and thinking perhaps the draught of 
life might prove too sweet for her, I confess to have 
tried to squeeze a little acid into it, by attempting 
to get up a flirtation with her husband, who 
is really a very sensible creature, and was rendered 
quite piquant by the novelty of his honesty and 


THE OXONIANS. 


31 . 




•traightforwardness. But, would you believe it, I 
found the dolt as insensible to niy coquetry, as I 
did his wife free from the slightest particle of jea- 
lousy. I hardly dare acknowledge to you that an 
almost involuntary feeling of respect stole over me 
as I found myself forced to give up my little inno- 
cent scheme; from which, however, I promised 
myself nothing more than a month’s amusement, 
and the hope of a periodical annual flirtation 
^pour passer le temps''"’ in the dull Christmas 
nolydays. 

Yet, as I have looked upon the quiet happiness 
of our old school-fellow, and found the idea of 
wedded comfort to be not quite chimerical ; I have 
been sometimes tempted to feel with Hume, and 
to wish that “ I too had never doubted.” But this 
is -folly. The smooth and quiet tenor of her life 
would never have suited such souls as ours. 

Failing in my flirtation scheme, I have formed 
others more consequential, and perhaps more legi- 
timate; and these are to unite my children with 
theirs. Their son has just quitted college. He is 
heir to fifteen thousand per annum from his father, 
and is, you know, also presumptive successor to 
the title and estates of Arlington. I will not con- 
ceal from you that there is a feeling of revenge 
upon that heartless man mingled in my desire for 
this match ; for I know nothing would give Lord 
Arlington a more bitter feeling than that a child 
of mine should bear the title which he once led 
her mother to expect was to be hers ; and that my 
daughter should reign in those halls of which he 
once pledged himself that her mother should be 
the mistress. 

Their daughter 1 intend for Orville. She will 
have an immense fortune, and the influence of the 
Hartley family once under my guidance, may raise 
him to the first offices of the state. 

Such are my present shemes, of which none are 
of course aware, excepting Orville and Sophia ; but 
I have so far succeeded as to have brought Emily 
Hartley up to spend her first winter in London 
with me, when I trust Orville, with a little of my 
assistance, will soon eradicate the evils of her 
country education, and efface an impression which 
a very good sort of man, of the name of Forrester, 
has contrived to make upon her young heart. 

Young Hartley I have turned entireily over to 
Orville and his sister. — When I first saw him I 
had some intentions of trying if I could prove 
more successful with the son than with the father. 
There is a manliness in his character, and a naivete 
about the nature of the creature, that would have 
given an affair with him, at any rate, the zest of 
novelty ; for one is really fatigued with the use 
hearts one generally meets with in society, and 
tired of those who pursue the mere turnpike roads 
of pleasure exactly according to the regular rules 
of passionless intrigue, and never venture out of 
the beaten track. Fearful, however, if once in my 
thraldom, his future conquest by Sophia might not 
be so easy, I generously gave up the scheme. 

Olivia gets on pretty well with her nabob. She 
married for riches, and she has them ; and those 
who marry merely for happiness can seldom say 
they have attained it; she therefore has the advan- 
tage. She rattles her chains rather too vehemently; 
but I hope her husband will not trouble her long, 
and she will then be the richest widow in town, 


with the liberty of pleasing herself. Money, Caro- 
line, is a positive good, ft purchases every thing 
we want; and if it did not always procure the 
reality, why the counterfeit is so good that it is 
not easily detected. Happiness may vanish ; love 
may wear out without any fault of ours ; but 
money remains so long as there are funds, strong 
boxes, and prudence. Why do we not think of 
all this when we are young ; why wait till we 
have wasted or thrown away that which is both 
freedom and power? It is this which has induced 
my inviting our cousin Admiral Frankley, whom 
you used to denominate a sea-monster, a caliban. 
He is one of those “ wise men come from the 
East” with a prodigious fortune ; and should he 
not discover the child of a beloved sister, who mar- 
ried against his consent, and who, now that she is 
dead, he would willingly forgive (how like a man,) 
I trust that a great portion of this will alight 
among us. 

You now know all my principal schemes. As 
to the hundred little collateral ones, which must 
occupy a busy woman in this busy world, they 
are too numerous to detail. Many of them make 
me wish you were once more among us; for a 
coadjutor is one of the essentials in society. Some- 
times I think I shall follow your example, and set 
up my standard where one is not crossed at every 
turn by some silly regulation of affected fastidious- 
ness ; but my duly as a mother stands in the way 
of this desirable project, and keeps me here, where 
I shall ever be my dear Caroline’s sincere friend. 

Cecilia. 

i 



CHAPTER XI. 

TOWN AND COUNTRY 

Such was the style of society into which out 
young Oxonian Frank Hartley, with his sister, 
was thrown ; and it may easily be imagined that it 
required more strength of mind and greater expe- 
rience in the world than either of them possessed, 
totally to withstand the influence of the various 
seductive circumstances by w'hich they were sur- 
rounded. Both of them, unfortunately for them- 
selves, were peculiarly alive to ridicule. This was 
easily discovered by Lord Orville and by Lady 
Sophia ; and became an almost never-failing wea- 
pon to mould them to their various purposes. So- 
phia, however, could as yet make no impression 
upon Hartley. In spite of the dissipation into 
which he had plunged, and of the variety and ele- 
gance of the women whom he had seen, the 
remembrance of the Curate’s daughter at Oxford 
was not entirely erased ; and nothing but the fear 
of that ridicule which he knew would be the 
inevitable consequence of such a communication, 
could have prevented his confiding the tale of 
his early love to Orville, in reply to his repeated 
banterings on the subject of his insensibility. - 

It was almost a passion of Lord Orville to lead 
young men into every kind of excess, and to 
render them as dissipated as himself; and more 


32 


THE OXONIANS. 


than one father had to curse the influence of this 
young nobleman for the subversion of their son’s 
morals, if not of the destruction of their con- 
stitutions. This seductive influence was greatly 
assisted by the brilliancy of his talents, and by 
that fascination of manner, which added to his 
rank, inspired many young men with a wish 
of imitation which often led to their ruin. An 
experienced gambler, he generally played high, 
and was successful. A great admirer of beauty, 
and a libertine in his opinions with regard to 
women ; it had been whispered that more than one 
had been already sacrificed to his wishes, and be- 
trayed by his falsehood. Yet he carried his sins 
upon him so lightly and so gracefully, and had 
such a flow of wit and animal spirits, that the 
world was ever more ready to blame his victims 
than himself; and when the facts were too broad 
for denial or concealment, people were always 
more willing to suppose him to have been seduced 
by the lures which had been spread for him, than 
that he had himself been the cold-hearted ruin- 
seeker. Indeed he had so much the art to — 

“ Make the worse appear the better reason,’* 

that whatever happened, he generally contrived to 
have the argument and tho world in his own 
favor. 

This was a person peculiarly dangerous to 
a man of such a wavering character as that 
of Hartley, who had been at college “ everything 
by turns, and nothing long;” led away by every 
new pursuit; now a huntsman, now a student, 
now a lover, and now a stoic ; according to the 
influence of the moment; yet he possessed a fund 
of good feeling and of sound principle. He would 
have started with horror at the idea of seduction ; 
have despised himself if he could have been guilty 
of falsehood, even to a woman ; and have shrunk 
with dismay from anything like a determined pro- 
pensity to the gaming table. 

He escaped easily from the set by which his 
friend Lascelles was surrounded, because their 
pursuits were not of a character to interest him ; 
and because there is a vulgarity inseparably con- 
nected with boxing, cock-fighting, and horse - 
racing, which disgusted him. But with Orville it 
was widely different. Vice in his hands was 
clothed with an elegance which hid its deformity ; 
sensuality assumed the grace and name of sen- 
timent; seduction sought its apology through the 
uncontrollable influence of passion ; while his more 
common intrigues were pursued with the fasti- 
dious particularity of a sybarite. There was no- 
thing to disgust the eye or the ear. What Orville 
wanted in principle he made up in taste, and was 
as perfect an epicure in his pleasures, as Apicius 
was in his table; while the pursuit of them was 
conducted with an elegance and refinement in 
which Petronius himself could have found nothing 
wanting. 

This was a dangerous character to be the con- 
stant companion of a young man just entering life ; 
and the knowledge that it was Lady Orville’s in- 
tention to make him his brother-in-law, did not 
exempt Hartley from Lord Orville’s propensity to 
make others as bad and vicious as himself. Nay, 
in the present instance, he argued that he should 


be doing his sister a service by giving her husband 
that experience before marriage which it might be 
very uncomfortable to her for him to have to gain 
afterward ; and by initiating him into that know- 
ledge of the world, which he asserted it was neces- 
sary for every man to possess. And too generally, 
indeed, is this pursuit of vice denominated know- 
ledge of the world ; as though that knowledge only 
consisted in those things which should be known 
only to be avoided. 

A certain knowledge of the world is no doubt 
necessary ; but he who acquires his knowledge at 
the expense of his morals, is the worse for his 
education. 

Almost the constant companion of Lord Orville, 
Hartley could not avoid frequently joining in pur- 
suits and parties at which he would rather not 
have been present; but as he became more ac- 
customed to them, the effect they at first produced 
gradually wore off, and from being a passive spec- 
tator he at length became occasionally a partici- 
pator of scenes and pleasures in the evening, which 
at first invariably produced repentance in the 
morning. If ever we suffer the rigidity of our 
principles to give way in the pursuit of pleasure, it 
is astonishing how quickly those principles become 
totally undermined. One step leads to another, 
till, being accustomed to that which we once con- 
sidered vice, the frequency of its recurrence takes 
from it that character. We then follow it as a 
matter of course, and consider it among the com- 
mon circumstances of life. 

Hartley’s principles did not rapidly give way; 
but still he was seduced by the influence of Orville 
into many scenes at which he blushed, when their 
real character forced itself on his mind ; nor could 
all the elegance that accompanied these pursuits, 
nor all the ingenious sophistry of Orville, entirely 
prevent his shrinking from the remembrance of 
them with bitter feelings of repentance. 

Young, handsome, and rich as he was, he soon 
also found himself courted by a class of females of 
a certain age, whose conduct had been just suffi- 
ciently scrupulous to keep. them within the pale of 
society, and who do more towards undermining a 
young man’s principles with regard to women, and 
towards lessening his respect for them, than all the 
ebullition of youthful passion, or any success that 
may crown the pursuits to which they excite him. 

; By this class of females, many a man who would 
otherwise have pursued his way quietly and harm- 
lessly through the world, has been transformed into 
a libertine and a coxcomb; and there is, unfortu- 
nately, scarcely any circle of society in which these 
dangerous Circes are not to be found. 

Hartley was, however, far from falling into all 
the temptations by which he was surrounded ; but 
by giving himself up totally to the scenes of dissi- 
pation and gayety, and occupying himself by no 
useful or solid pursuits, the power of resistance 
became gradually weakened; and when, in his fits 
of right reasoning, he would have withdrawn from 
some party projected by Lord Orville, he was as- 
sailed by such a volley of ridicule from that noble- 
man and his companions, that he was generally 
obliged to resign himself to their influence. 

Lady Orville saw that reflection would not aid 
her schemes, and she therefore added her exertions 
towards keeping his mind perpetually occupied by 


THE OXONIANS. 


33 


pleasure ; leaving- no time either for his mind or 
that of Emily to reflect, she calculated that they 
would soon lose the power as well as the inclina- 
tion; and that their present life of excitement 
would soon obliterate all wish to return to their for- 
mer tranquil existence. 

In the mean time, poor Emily’s mind became 
sadly bewildered by the round of pleasure to which 
she had so suddenly been introduced. Plied by 
the flattery of Lord Orville on one side, and perpe- 
tually subject to the insidious persuasions and ex- 
amples of Lady Orville and Sophia on the other ; 
she already began to look upon her past existence 
as time that had been lost ; and at the thoughts 
and feelings that then gave her pleasure, as the 
mere result of her childhood and inexperience. 
Tha perpetual state of excitement in which she 
was kept, perverted her imagination, and gave her 
no time to form a correct judgment of the scenes in 
which her time was spent, or the characters by 
which she was surrounded. 

Sometimes, with her waking thoughts would 
come a recollection of the tranquil pleasures, of 
Hartley Grove, and with it all the accompanying 
remembrances of Edward Forrester and his atten- 
tions, and of her mother’s kindness and example; 
but before they could have sufficient influence to 
unwarp her mind from its present thraldom, the 
tempters were at her side, new scenes of pleasure 
were presented, and the same giddy whirl con- 
tinued. 

If reflection intruded for a moment, it was ban- 
ished by some new pursuit ; and if she even ven- 
tured to allude to her country life, a torrent of rid- 
icule was sure to silence her remarks, and made 
her ashamed of owning that she had ever derived 
any enjoyment from it. We are sorry also to add, 
that the elegance of Lord Orville had often made 
her draw comparisons between that young noble- 
man and Edward Forrester, not quite in favor of 
the latter. 

“ Come now, Emily,” said Lady Sophia to her 
one evening, as they sat down after the fatigues of 
a quadrille, “you must certainly acknowledge this 
to be a little better than vegetating like a cabbage- 
rose in the country, with no other beau than the 
prosing Mr. Forrester. Come, confess, is not your 
new mode of life delightful to you?” 

“ I do confess,” replied Emily, “ that I, indeed, 
find it delightful ; but I have so long been taught 
to dread the thorns, that I scarcely dare enjoy the 
flowers. 

“ What !” exclaimed Lord Orville, who had 
caught this sentence en passant : “ is it our charm- 
ing rustic who is moralising so poetically about 
thorns and flowers'? and is Miss Hartley weak 
enough to follow the musty maxims of those dull cyn- 
ics, who, because they have been once stung by a 
bee, and once wounded by a thorn, would have us 
forswear honey and roses to the end of our lives'? 
W’e modern philosophers know better; we enjoy 
all the pleasures of the bee with no more toil than 
the butterfly.” 

“ Ay, but remember,” said Emily, “ that gay and 
volatile insect perishes with the summer, in whose 
sun it has idly basked ; while the industrious 
bee-” 

“ Is blown up by gunpowder for the sake of the 
honey which his labor has accumulated,” inter- 


rupted Lord Orville. “ This is the reward of his 
industry ; and surely you must allow that it is 
better to expire amid the sweets of flowers on 
whose leaves you have led a life of delight, than 
live to be suffocated amid the stores, which we 
have collected through hours of toil and pain.” 

“Well argued, Frederick,” exclaimed Sophia; 
“ the butter-fly has it all to nothing.” 

“ Hitherto, Miss Emily, believe me, you have 
only vegetated. Here you will begin to live. — • 
Begin to feel the power of your charms; and,” 
lowering his voice into a sound modulated tender- 
ness, “ to make others feel it.” 

Emily felt agitated, she scarcely knew why; for 
compliments were now familiar to her ear. 

“ Oh yes,” cried Lady Sophia ; “ London, dear 
London, is the place after all. As to the country, 
I never could endure it. There every day in the 
week passes in the same dull monotony. For 
want of better society, one is obliged to take the 
village apothecary by way of a sleeping potion; or 
to keep one’s self awake by quarreling at litigious 
whist with the attorney — ” 

“ While the only amusement on a wet Sunday,’^ 
continued Lord Orville, “is a shivering visit to a 
cold country church, which, from its damps, as re- 
gularly transfers its inmates to the churchyard, as 
a physician consigns his patients to the undertaker; 
and where one is condemned to hear a fat vicar 
snore through the litany — ” 

“Or a half-starved curate,” continued Lady 
Sophia, “ extend his sermon to the gaping congre- 
gation for the length of an hour; for fear of losing 
his Sunday’s dinner by waking his patron before 
he had finished his nap.” 

“Nay,” said Emily, pleadingly, “but you know 
that at Christmas, Hartley Grove was filled by 
transplantations from your own circles.” 

“ Oh ! I’ll allow,” replied Sophia, “ that we did 
all of us come for one month in the year, out of 
pity; but that very circumstance must have made 
the other eleven ten times more dull by the 
contrast.” 

“ Ay ; but then the rest of the year we had 
assemblies, you know,” argued Emily, unwilling 
to hear a country life cried down quite so furi- 
ously. 

“ Assemblies !” repeated Lady Sophia. “ True, 
with all the dull dowagers to play sixpenny whist; 
a half-pay captain with a wooden leg the Master 
of the Ceremonies ; a few old bachelors to hobble 
through dances in the time of the Dead March in 
Saul, and the prudent Edward Forrester to prose 
to you between the sets.” 

“ But we had many settlers from the metropolis 
in our neighborhood,” again urged Emily. 

“True,” cried Lord Orville; “tradesmen and 
attorneys become rich by their villanous occupa- 
tion, and retired to the country because a little too 
modest to spend their customers’ and clients’ money 
before their faces. But come, the next quadrille 
is forming; and, if disengaged, I trust Miss Emily 
will not refuse to dance with me. Here, Hartley, 
vis-a-vis us, with my sister ;” and they joined the 
circle of dancers. Lord Orville taking every oppor- 
tunity, of which the convenient quadrille affords so 
many, to delight Emily with that conversation, of 
which he was a perfect master. If there is any 
thing a man is to be envied for, it is the possession 


34 


THE OXONIANS. 


of that tact and tale'nt, which can carry him through 
such a conversation upon trifles, as can render them 
interesting. How many moments of tedium does 
this faculty save the fortunate possessor. 

How miserably awkward have we seen a man, 
standing by the side of his partner, during the 
passive part of the quadrille, without exxhanging a 
word with her; or, if she has courage enough to 
make an attempt at conversation, only answering 
her with a monosyllable. What a relief to such a 
man must be the word “ L’ete,” or even “ Pas- 
tourelle,” since it takes from the awkwardness of 
his silence by setting him in motion ; and with 
what delight must he hear Challoner or Collinet’s 
command for the “ grand rond,” which puts him so 
nearly out of his jeopardy. 

What a pity that the dancing-master does not 
exercise the tongue, as well as the feet, of the pupil ; 
or that Hart, or Collinet, or Wieppert, or Mussard, 
do not accompany the publication of their quadrilles 
by some little entertaining colloquies that might 
relieve young ladies and gentlemen from the 
awkwardness of that total silence, which so often 
gives to an English dance the solemnity of some 
religious ceremony, instead of the appearance of 
hilarity. 

Were we dancers, we would, rather than remain 
silent, get up a conversation; and taking care not 
to dance with the same partner twice, and to avoid 
sisters, make it last us through the whole evening. 




CHAPTER XI r. 

AN ABSENT LOVER. 

While Hartley and his sister were thus gradu- 
ally losing the beauty of their simplicity, and merg- 
ing their natural traits in the factitious charac- 
teristics of fashion, Edwin Forrester wms pursuing 
his usual routine duties at Forrester-lodge. The 
absence of Emily from the country had deprived 
his occupations of their principal zest. She was 
no longer there to admire the improvements he 
contemplated in his park, or to smile her approba- 
tion at the happiness of his tenantry. With her 
presence had fled the principal pleasure of his 
existence. The hope of seeing her in the evening 
had hitherto sweetened the hours of the morning ; 
the recollection of her conversation had enlivened 
his thoughts during the solitude of the night. But 
she was gone, and he started with alarm at finding 
how dull every thing appeared in her absence; 
and how essential her presence was to his exis- 
tence. 

His books became tasteless; music an annoy- 
ance ; a restlessness, for which he could not account, 
oppressed him; and twenty times he was on the point 
of starting for London, that he might either verify the 
worst of his fears, or ease his heart from the anguish 
they occasioned, by proving them to be groundless. 
But he shrunk from the contrast which his plain 
and rustic manners would present to that of the 
elegant Orville, who had been his contemporary at 
Oxford ; and dreaded the ridicule which his homely 


and common sense might draw upon him in iha 
fashionable circles in town. He thought that this 
contrast would not be felt by Emily so much, 
while he did not put himself in personal contact 
with those whom he dreaded as his rivals; he 
judged that her memory would be more favorable 
to him than his presence ; and determined it to be 
wiser to trust to her recollection of the hours they 
had passed together in the country, and of the sin- 
cerity of her affection, than to make an awkward 
exhibition of his rusticity in London. 

Uneasy, therefore, as he was, he resolved to re- 
main ; and by attending to his active duties as a 
magistrate and a landlord, attempted to relieve his 
restlessness, and enliven the tedium of his present 
existence. 

One morning, on inspecting his stud, he found 
his huntsman more than usually officious, and more 
than commonly anxious to detain him in the stable. 
Two or three times he seemed to be on the point 
of speaking about something besides the horses ; 
but the moment he began, he turned off the sen- 
tence into praises of the brown filly, or lamentation 
over the lameness of the black mare. At length, 
having literally compelled Forrester to look over 
the whole stud two or three times, he again hem- 
med and hawed, and seemed big with some impor- 
tant communication. Forrester turned to him with 
evident signs of attention; when, again put out of 
countenance, Thomas launched out about the bay 
gelding, and indulged himself in a tirade against 
the farrier, who had put him in physic too 
soon. 

This dissertation finished, Forrester was again 
departing, when an “ Oh, but, sir,” from Thomas, 
again detained him. 

“Well, Thomas'?” 

“Why — sir — you see — that Mrs. Tomkins — 
Mary, you know, sir — Miss flartley’s maid — ” 

“ Well, what of her '?” inquired Forrester, inte- 
rested about any thing connected with Emily 
“What of her?” asked he rather impatiently, as 
Thomas again came to a full stop. 

“ She certainly has got. the glanders, sir, as you 
say — ” 

“What, Mrs. Tomkins?” 

“ God forbid, sir ! No ; the brown mare.” 

“ Pshaw. But what of Mrs. Tomkins ?” 

“ Why, you know, sir,” continued Thomas, 
more bewildered than ever at the evident interest 
his master took in the communication, “ that she 
went to Lunnun — that was before her legs were 
spavined, you know, sir.” 

“ Her legs spavined ! Come, Thomas, for once 
forget your horses, and think of your sweet- 
heart.” 

Thomas smiled, as he said, “ Bless you, sir, what 
would Lightfoot, and Ranger, and the Filly do, if I 
did that?” 

“Well, but what of Mrs. Tomkins?” earnestly 
repeated Forrester, who now began to attribute 
Thomas’s backwardness of speech to some hesita- 
tion as to what he had to communicate. 

“ Why, sir, you see she be a scholar, and weli 
educated, seeing as how she can read and write. 
That mare will have the staggers, now, sir.” 

“ Pish ! never mind the mare’s staggers.” 

“ But if we don’t mind them, you know, sir, 
they’ll carry her oflf.” 


THE OXONIANS. 


35 


But Mr-i. Tomkins?” repeated Forrester. 

We must blead her in the mouth, and cut her 
tongue.” 

“But what of Mrs. Tomkins ?” reiterated his 
master. 

“ Why, sir, you see, Mary is well trained, and 
can write a running hand as fast as the filly can 
gallop. It would do your honour good to see her 
pothooks and hangers.” 

“ Well, well, never mind her pot-hooks and 
hangers. I know she is a very nice young wo- 
man.” 

“ As nice a creature, sir, as ever carried you over 
a five-barred gate, or came in at the death, and car- 
ried oflf the tail.” 

“Well, but what of her, Thomas?” 

“ Why, your honor — that is — you see — she and 
I — that is — I and she — had a kind of kindness for 
one another. Who-a, who-a, Lightfoot — be quiet. 
Ranger. And she had half promised to be my 
wife, sir, when she came back. — That Bessy Bed- 
lam, your honor, ’s quite a cheat, she’s a crib bite, 
and I can’t cure her.” 

“ Well, but Mrs. Tomkins ?” 

“ Oh, she’s not like Bessy Bedlam. Well, sir, 
if it must out, she’s writ me a letter.” ^ 

“ A billet doux, I presume,” said Forrester, smil- 
ing. 

“ No, your honor, there’s no do in it. ’Tis a 
downright earnest letter, and there it is,” tak- 
ing a piece of paper, crumpled up into the size 
of a walnut-shell, out of his green plush small 
clothes. 

“ Well, but what is the letter to me, Tho- 
mas ?” 

“ Oh, nothing, sir, only that there’s a kind of mes- 
sage to you in it.” 

“A message! what, from Miss Hartley?” ex- 
claimed Forrester, with astonishment. 

“ No, sir, from Mary,” said Thomas. “ She 
tells me to give it to you by some side wind, but I 
was never given to turnings and windings, except 
turning a hair and winding my horn ; and so, sir, 
I thought it was best to give you the letter itself; 
and there it is, axing your honor’s pardon for crump- 
ling «it in my breeches-pocket.” And smoothing 
the letter out with his hand, he presented it to For- 
rester. 

F orrester took the letter with some degree of agi- 
tation. 

“ But, Thomas, is this fair to show me your 
sweetheart’s letter?” 

“ Oh, sir,” replied Thomas, “ there be nothing 
that she or I be ashamed of, sir; it be all fair and 
aboveboard ; I love her, and she loves me, in an 
honest sort of a way, and we intend to be married 
— you see, sir — when — when — ” 

“ When what, Thomas?” 

“ Why, if it must out, sir, we mean to be mar- 
ried when you and Miss Hartley make a match of 
it.” 

Forrester started ; he felt his face flush, and his 
heart beat; and, becoming too much agitated to 
continue the conversation, he opened the letter, 
when the sight of Mrs. Tomkins’s pot-hooks and 
hangers soon convincing him that it would require 
some time to decipher the contents, he ordered Tho- 
mas to attend him in the library in half an hour; 


and walked away for the purpose of reading Mary’s 
scrawl, which, with some difficulty, he made out to 
run as follows ; 

Dear Tommas, 

I dare say by this time you must think I have 
forgotten you, and all about you, and our true love, 
and not much wunder if I did, in this here city, or 
obstropolis, as they calls it, which is nothing more 
nor less than one great Bedlam, only that the loo- 
ny ticks are ail loose^ instead of chained up with iron 
chanes as they are in the Horsepittle. Oh, Tom- 
mas, Tommas, what a place this Lunnun is ! such 
rakketting and ricketting; — such settings up and 
lying in bed; ay, and lying out of it too; — such 
wickedness and gallyvanting ; oh, Tommas, I’m 
glad you didn’t come; you wont therefore be sur- 
prised to hear that I have been turned quite topsy- 
turvy, ever since I came (though which is ray top- 
sy, or which is my turvey, I cannot tel) ;) for I am 
quite bullversey, as Mounseer, Lord Horvil’s French 
varlet, calls it, in his foreign lingo, which is no 
more like plane English than a pea is like a por- 
ridge pot. But bullversey means turned upside 
down, which I am sure enough. Would you be- 
lieve it, he calls my mother a mare, and me her fil- 
ly ; and though I have but one fiither, he swears I 
have a pair; and then he calls me a moor, and 
praises my eyes and my mouth, which he calls a 
yew and bush, and makes French love to me; but 
you needn’t be afraid of him, Tommas, fori set too 
high a valley on English flesh and blood to think 
of throwing myself away upon aforriner ; and I am 
quite shamed, so I am, to see so many young ladies 
bring home husbands from forrin parts, with great 
whiskers, to have hairs to their estates ; no more to 
compare with their own Englishmen, than Tom 
Thum is to the Irish giant. Then for the servants, 
Lord bless me, Tommas, they’re as bad as their 
masters and missuses ; such goings on in the stew- 
ards’ room, and servants’ hall ; quite as bad as in 
the drawing-room ; I’m sure I only wunder I’m not 
converted, but I aint; I knows better, and what 
will be the end of such doings too, as I told lady 
Sofires own woman yesterday, when I caut — but I 
won’t tell. Then all the fam-de-chambres dresses 
just like their ladies. They have embezzles and 
bustles of their own, as big as balloons ; bless me 
’tis quite stonishing. But now, Tommas, for my 
pith; I want you to give your master, Mr. Forrest- 
er, an nint. Miss Emily is getting quite an atomy ; 
so I must make no more bones, but out with it at 
once ; for I don’t like her goings on much more 
than the rest on em. Ther’s Lord Horville, a very 
nice gentleman no doubt, but a very divil among 
the wimmen, they say; he is quite like my young 
lady’s shaddy, who is a shaddy herself; now I’am 
sure he’s no better than he should be, because I’ve 
heard of one or two of his pranks from Mounseer, 
and therefore, dear Tommas, I want you some day, 
when you are currycombing your horses, or giving 
your so-ho, so-ho, or a blowing o that old horn of 
yours, that I laff at so ; just to give Mr. Forrester 
an nint to cum up here and look arter his own, or 
else I’m afeard it won’t be his own, and then I’m 
sure, poor gentleman, he would weep, and wale, 
and nash his teeth, as they say in the scripter, and 
well he might. Now, Tommas, do this cleverly 


36 


THE OXONIANS. 


So no more at present, except my love to the dary 
made. As mounseer would say, ajew, ajew, 

Mart Tomkins. 

Much as Forrester was inclined to smile at some 
parts of this letter, he was too sensibly affected by 
the conclusion of it, to think of the absurdity of its 
commencement. 

No argument that he could use to himself that 
this was the mere chit-chat of a silly serving maid, 
could convince him that she was mistaken. The 
information was too much in consonance with his 
own thoughts and.' fears not to have some founda- 
tion in truth. He knew Lord Orville well ; and it 
had required his utmost strength of mind not to 
give way to the jealous fears that were inspired by 
the idea that Emily was domesticated in the same 
house with him. 

Then, too, Mrs. Tomkins described her as pale 
and thin. She was then ill, and he was away from 
her; she away from every body who loved her sin- 
cerely. Who could attend her with the affection 
and care of her mother 1 This thought added 
to the wretchedness which his other ideas had oc- 
casioned. 

At first he resolved to go with the letter to the 
Grove, where he was certain to find that both Mr. 
Hartley and Lady Emily would participate in his 
feelings, and immediately set off for London ; 
upon second thoughts, however, he determined 
not to alarm their fears, perhaps unnecessarily ; 
but he found it impossible to remain passively in 
the country while Emily was either ill or exposed 
to dangers which she might not have sufRcient 
experience to encounter with safety. 

His imagination pictured her as subject to the 
insidious attentions of Lord Orville, and beset by 
the persuasions of his mother and sister. Then 
arose the tormenting comparison between himself 
and Orville, and the still more terrible recollection 
of his libertine principles with regard to women; 
principles that had rendered him notorious at Ox- 
ford and which, so far from concealing, he had 
there been proud to express and to defend. 

Lord Orville, too, was not like one of those com- 
mon coxcombs of the world who become contemp- 
tible, from being so much wrapped up in them- 
selves. He had great powers of mind, as well as 
great elegance of manners; and though his know- 
ledge might be superficial, yet its surface was too 
brilliant to permit a common or cursory observer 
to detect its shallowness. 

In short, Orville was quite the man to dazzle the 
imagination and bewilder the mind of an inexperi- 
enced young woman; and Forrester knew and 
acknowledged this inwardly, although he would 
have openly asserted Emily’s mind to be too strong 
to be so dazzled and bewildered. 

He was in this perplexity of thought when 
Thomas attended him according to his direction in 
the library. His first care was to desire Thomas 
to be silent on the subject of his letter, aud to im- 
press upon his mind that there were no reasonable 
grounds for those fears expressed by Mrs. Tomkins; 
but as she seemed to hint that Miss Hartley’s health 
was not so good, as when she left the Grove, he 
told Thomas he was resolved to go to town to as- 
certain the fact, before he alarmed her family by 
any report or information of that nature. 


On hearing this determination, Thomas became 
fidgetty ; stood first upon one leg, then upon th© 
other, twirled his hat between his finger and his 
thumb, and made several abortive efforts to speak. 

Forrester perceived his embarrassment, and was 
too well aware of the nature of his feelings not 
to understand those of his servant. 

“ What, you want to go to London too, eh, 
Thomas 1 

“ If your honor has no objection, sir. The hor- 
ses are all in capital order, and I could just now 
be very well spared ; and I never see’d Lunnun, 
sir, — if you please.” 

“ But, Thomas, I have no establishment, and if 
you accompany me I must take you as my valet; 
and as that is not your situation, you may, per- 
haps, object.” 

“ Not at all, sir, I’m a little like the signs over 
the inn-doors, that promise to do well both for man 
and beast; I understand ’em both, sir, and to take 
me to Lunnun would be conferring a favor on me, 
your honor.” 

“ Well, then, tell Atkins to pack up my things; 
and do you order two pair, of post-horses for the 
travelling chariot to be ready at six, and go to 
the post-office, and desire them to give the guard 
of the London mail a crown to order relays all the 
way up to town. In the mean time I will go to 
the Grove to see if the family have any commands 
for Miss Hartley.” 

Away went Thomas, delighted at having suc- 
ceeded in his wish ; for, in his way, he was quite 
as fidgetty about “ Mounseer,” as Mrs. Tomkins 
called the French “ Varlet,” as Forrester was 
about Lord Orville ; and made up his mind to 
give him what he called a good “ leathering,” pro- 
vided he found meet occasion, and a good op- 
portunity. 

Forrester’s incipient doubts were but imaginary; 
yet few know, what a true thing that is, which is 
called ideal, so much as a jealous lover; he feels as 
much pain in his suspicion, as he would experience 
in the certainty of his misfortune. From his own, 
he had guessed at Thomas’s sentiments, and it was 
rather a comfort to have a companion for his 
journey with feelings somewhat akin to his Own, 
instead of the apathetic Mr. Atkins, his usual per- 
sonal servant. 

A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.” 

Having made these arrangements, he rode slowly 
over to the Grove, where the family were amazingly 
surprised at his sudden resolution, which he attri- 
buted to some unexpected business with his lawyers 
in London. 

A hurried letter, and a thousand blessings and 
loves, were all these fond parents had time to send 
their child. Forrester was, over and over again, 
desired not to be in town an hour without seeking 
her. A desire which there was not much occasion 
to repeat so often, to secure its being complied with; 
and both Mr. Hartley and Lady Emily, anticipated 
the delight with which she would receive her old 
and valued friend ; while Forrester heartily wished 
that he might find it so. As they expressed these 
anticipations, however, the pleasure his presence 
was expected to create, a misgiving doubt agonized 
his mind, which he used his utmost exertion to 


THE OXONIANS. 


37 


banish; and, assuminf? an appearance of ease which 
be was far from feeling, he quitted the Grove, gal- 
Joped home to the lodge, and in an hour was on 
ihe road to London, with Thomas by his side, 
travelling as fast as four post-horses, from the 
George, could lay their legs to the ground. 

Neither of our travellers had very pleasant 
thoughts by way of companions. The uneasy and 
anxious meditations, which jealous doubts create 
in minds, where such feelings have hitherto been 
strangers, were calculated for any thing, rather than 
to lessen the tedium of their journey. Anticipa- 
tions of evil filled Forrester’s mind, and seemed to 
lengthen every mile of his wearisome journey to 
the metropolis. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARRIYAL. 

To a man who loves and enjoys the quiet freedom 
of the country, atRj to whom nature in every variety 
presents a beauty, who derives as much pleasure 
from the clear frosty morning, when the frozen dew 
sparkles in a thousand glittering gem-like drops on 
the heath-clad common, as he does from the mild 
morning of summer, when the flowers pour forth 
their fragrance in the fulness of their bloom, and 
the birds their melodies in the plenitude of their 
joy ; who delights in a vigorous gallop over the 
downs, or a sauntering walk in some sequestered 
glen ; and w'hose principal pleasure consists in 
these enjoyments, and the freedom of a country 
life, the prospect of a crowded city affords any anti- 
cipation rather than that of pleasure. 

It was thus wdth Edward Forrester; who threw 
himself back in his carriage with disgust, as the gas 
lamps, crowded streets, and rattling stones an- 
nounced his arrival in the metropolis on the second 

night of his departure from . Forrester’s only 

visits to London had been his occasional trips from 
Oxford, and in the first season after his leaving 
college. At that time he passed a couple of months 
there, with Lord Orville, and some other of his 
Oxford companions, who had quitted the banks of 
the Isis at the same period. There was, however, 
a natural diffidence in Forrester, that unfitted him 
for general society. His manners always wore the 
appearance of restraint; the confidence of the 
women abashed him; and the libtrtinagt, and 
freedom of men, were not at all consonant to his 
own ideas either of pleasure or propriety. He 
felt the qualities, which he knew he possessed, to 
be lost in the vorteit of animal gayety, by which he 
was surrounded ; and soon finding himself entirely 
out of his element, he quitted the gay throng ; and, 
•eeking more congenial scenes, and a more worthy 
occupation of his time, in the cultivation of his 
paternal property; which was large; and in the 
pursuit of those studies, commenced at Oxford ; he 
became at twenty-three a country gentleman. 

His acquaintance with the Hartleys, together 
with several other high and respectable families in 

3 


his own neighborhood, left him nothing to regret 
on the score of society. His duties as a country 
gentleman and as a magistrate, gave him ple^nty 
of useful occupation for his time; and the growing 
beauties of Miss Emily Hartley, at length attracting 
his attention, and making a deep impression on his 
heart, left him nothing in the world to wish, but 
the completion of his union w'ith her; a consum- 
mation, that the evident encouragement of Mr. and 
Lady Emily Hartley, who saw and appreciated his 
w’orth, together with the warm friendship and 
growing attachment of the young lady, w'ho w'as 
not insensible to it, gave him every reasonable hope 
of not being far distant. 

His whole journey had been one of restless 
anxiety and uneasy anticipation ; he imagined a 
thousand things which his better judgment con- 
vinced him could not be, and as he approached the 
metropolis his heart grew sick with apprehension. 
As to honest Thomas, although his feelings arose 
from precisely the same source as those of his 
sensitive master, they seemed only to agitate his 
fingers’ ends. Whenever the idea of “ Mounseer” 
crossed his mind, his open hands closed into fists: 
the eyes of the Frenchman became, in his imagina- 
tion of “ rainbow tint,” and hits, right and left, 
were planted upon the unfortunate person of the 
French valet by anticipation. So strong was this 
impression on his mind, that once, while asleep, 
and W'e presume, dreaming of Mrs. Tomkins and 
his rival, he put himself into a boxing attitude, and 
with one hand, had nearly knocked off his master’s 
travelling cap, while with the other he dashed 
through the carriage window, to the great discom- 
fiture of his knuckles, which were considerably cut 
by the glass which he had demolished. 

The appearance of London, however, which had 
disgusted Forrester, and brought to his mind, with 
tenfold force, the fears with which he was op- 
pressed, produced quite a different effect upon poor 
Thomas. Dazzled by the lights, bewildered by the 
people, he stared with an intensity that would 
have made one suppose he was looking out for the 
golden pavement, with which countrymen have 
proverbially covered the streets of the metropolis. 
The Frenchman, his jealousy and anger, and even 
Mary Tomkins herself, seemed to have quitted his 
memory, as he gazed in stupid astonishment, at the 
crowded and lighted streets. 

Forrester’s arrival happened on one of the nights 
upon which Lady Orville was at home, to about 
five hundred of her friends; ecarte, whist, and other 
games occupied some of the elders of the assembly; 
while quadrilles, conversation, music, and flirting 
were quite on the qui vive in the other apartments. 

Lady Sophia, as usual, had taken care to occupy 
Hartley ; as it was one of the schemes of Lady 
Orville so to afficher his attention to her daughter 
in public, as to give her an apology for requiring 
that kind of explanation, from which so few young 
men escape from an experienced woman, without 
making a proposal of which they had no intention 
at the commencement of the explanation. 

As it was one of the plans of Lady Orville to 
make the conduct of Hartley to Lady Sophia as 
public as possible, so was it a scheme of Lord 
Orville’s, without any positive intention of mar- 
riage, to make his attentions to Emily sufficiently 


y 

38 T H E 0 ^ 0 N I A N S. 


Visible to the world for him to be set down as her 
accepted lover, and to prevent the intrusion of 
others. 

Orville felt the prudence of his mother’s schemes, 
but he had unfortunately seen too much of married 
life and married women, to take the yoke upon 
himself without much deliberation ; and convenient 
as he acknowledged to himself it would be, to 
enjoy such a fortune as that which Miss Hartley 
would probably possess, together with the influ- 
ence of her family, yet matrimony was too bitter a 
pill to be gilded over by these advantages, to one 
W'ho had so little regard to its sacred institution as 
Orville. He valued his freedom too highly to 
sacrifice it easily ; and though married life, in a 
certain class of society, can scarcely he said to 
bring that thraldom upon a husband which it does 
in the inferior orders, or indeed to impose any 
very great restriction upon their conduct ; yet there 
is a certain sense of placing one’s honor in the 
keeping of another, which renders it nearly impos- 
sible for a husband to be guilty of any dereliction, 
without having a natural fear that perhaps his 
conduct to others may be returned in kind. 

Attracted, however, by the beauty of Emily, he 
could not resist paying her the attentions which 
his mother prescribed ; but these were accompanied 
by no fixed motives. Sometimes he canvassed the 
propriety of making her his wife ; and sometimes, 
as his knowledge of woman’s nature made him see 
how agreeable his attentions were, and how ex- 
citable was every emotion of her susceptible heart, 
he almost conceived hopes of another nature. In 
this undecided state of mind, uncertain of his own 
purpose, he pursued the course of ajjicheing his 
attentions ; and succeeded in the unworthy motive 
of making the world suppose that they w'ere agree- 
able to Emily, and that he was the happy object 
of her alTections. 

On this night Lord Orville had been more parti- 
cular than ever in his attentions to Emily. Some 
of his companions had rallied him as a lost man, 
others had congratulated him as a happy one. 
Some swore that he was going into the leading 
strings of matrimony, while those who knew him 
better, trembled for the happiness of the object of 
such marked attentions from such a man. 

Emily had scarcely danced with any one else 
the whole evening. She had received all the 
compliments with which the dazzling beauty of her 
appearance had been greeted, with indifference ; 
but she lent an attentive ear to the insidious, the 
brilliant conversation of Orville. The continent, 
its manners, and its literature had been the prin- 
cipal subject on which they had conversed. Its 
freedom had been extolled, and all the worst sen- 
timents of Rousseau, Voltaire, the Crebillons, and 
the whole set of those who have devoted so much 
wit to undermine principle, had been pressed into 
tlie conversation of Lord Orville, as though they 
were his own. Dazzled by the hrilliancy of his 
arguments, she did not perceive their sophistry ; 
and entertained by the novelty of his propositions 
and assertions, she did not take time to ascertain 
their correctness, or to detect their falsehood. 

In the midst of one of their conversations, a lady 
who was leaning over the back of the sofa, ex- 
claimed, “ Bless me. Miss Hartley, who is that 


grave-looking gentleman, watching you with such 
anxious looks?” 

Emily and Lord Orville both looked up at the 
same moment, and both started at perceiving For- 
rester standing a very few paces from them, and 
watching them with evident anxiety. 

Emily blushed as she saw him, and though the 
full tide of the remembrance of home rushed upon 
her heart, at the sight of one so nearly connected 
with all the scenes of her early years; yet these 
feelings experienced a total revulsion as she recol- 
lected Lord Orville’s presence. The moment that 
he saw himself perceived, Forrester advanced. 
His heart leaped with joy as he caught the glance 
of recognition and pleasure with which her counte- 
nance beamed at the first sight of himt but was 
repressed with agony at the cold reception w’hich 
he met with on his advance. The fact was, that 
at the very moment she was holding out her hand 
in the full remembrance of her home, and of her 
former sentiments for Forrester, Emily caught 
Lord Orville’s eye fixed upon her, with a scruti- 
nizing glance, in which a satiric smile was mingled 
with an appearance of intense anxiety. This, in a 
moment, prevented any exhibition of natural feel- 
ing; and Forrester’s first greeting with the woman 
in whose hands he had placed the whole happiness 
of his life, was passed in a few formal inquiries 
about her family and the Grove. 

Directly that Orville saw he had sufficient in- 
fluence over Emily thus to regulate her reception 
of Forrester within the bounds of mere polite re- 
cognition, he greeted him warmly as an old 
Oxonian. 

“ What, my old friend Forrester?” said he ; “I 
am delighted to see you among us again ; why, 
man, I was afraid you had buried yourself amid 
the groves of your estate ; and really never expected 
to hear of you again, excepting through the medium 
of an epitaph. But what in the name of wonder 
has brought you here, while I thought you were as 
deeply rooted at Forrester Lodge as one of its old 
and respectable oaks.” 

“And I am afraid. Lord Orville, that I shall 
bear transplanting quite as badly as one of those very 
oaks you speak of, for I feel that they would not 
be much more misplaced here, than there master,” 
replied Forrester. 

“ Quite as modest as ever — I see. But, my dear 
Forrester, how will the country get on without you 7 
Sprely, the Bench of country Justices will stop in 
their progress for want of their oracle ! and we shall 
have nothing but appeals against their convic- 
tions and commitments at all the Sessions in tiie 
country.” 

“ Your Jjordship is either pleased to be satirical, 
or to overrate my humble exertions among the 
Magistracy,” replied Forrester, gravely. 

“ Nay, my dear Forrester ; I see you are as mab- 
tcr-of-fact as ever, and cannot, for the life of you, 
understand a little raillery. But come, here are 
plenty of our old Christchurch fellows, who will 
be delighted to see you in London.” 

So saying, and feeling the necessity of getting 
him away from Emily while the feelings of his 
first appearance were still fresh, and before the 
dormant sentiments of her heart were awakened 
by his presence, he led Forrester away to Langley, 


THE OXONIANS. 


39 


who stood surrounded by a host of old Oxonians 
who, leaving some dozens of young ladies to sit as 
wall-flowers, and sigh, in vain, for partners, were 
enjoying the brilliancy of his conversation. For- 
rester was received with hearty greetings by all his 
old companions; but nothing gave him more 
pleasure than the renewal of his old acquaintance 
with Langley. He was quite aware of the change 
in his prospects, and the moment he had heard of 
it had invited him to the Lodge ; in the hope of 
his being able to hit upon some plan, which might 
relieve the bitterness of his disappointment. 

Langley, on his part, returned the warm pressure 
of his friend’s hand ; and, though a slight blush 
rose upon his countenance, as he remembered how 
differently he was circumstanced when they last 
met, the feeling soon passed away in the gratitude 
with which he recollected Forrester’s kind invita- 
tion on the occasion, and which his marriage had 
been the sole reason of his declining. 

“ Why, Langley, your wit seems to possess the 
power of Orpheus,” exclaimed Orville, ‘‘ for you 
have literally given animation to Forrester; who, 
till he heard your voice, was silent as one of his 
own trees; or, perhaps, like the statue of Memnon, 
he requires the sun of wit to shine upon him before 
he condescends to utter a sound. However, we 
are really glad to see you here, Forrester, once 
more in civilized society.” 

“You do me honor,” said Forrester, to whom 
this raillery gave absolute pain ; “but I fear I shall 
make but a contemptible addition to a society where 
gayety and wit preside and he recollected with 
agony that it was only love and fear that drove 
him into its vortex. 

“ Why, Forrester, you look melancholy; what, 
already forgetting your shady groves ! or, perhaps, 
some rustic love left behind in the country. Some 
intended Mrs. Forrester, the future Lady Bountiful 
of your estate? The prospective maker of potions, 
and distributor of coals, soup, and blankets to your 
tenantry, eh ?” 

“No; I have left none behind me to regret,” 
said Forrester, laying almost unconsciously a pecu- 
liar emphasis on the word “behind,” and he 
internally breathed a heartfelt wish that he had 
done so. 

“ Ah, Forrester, you are a sly fellow : no wonder 
nature had such delights for you, while she dis- 
played herself in such charms as Miss Emily 
Hartley possesses.” 

The name grated on his ear when pronounced 
by Orville ; and his heart shrunk from an allusion 
which seemed to hint that his passion was not 
unknown to the gay peer. He, how^ever, rallied 
himself sufficiently to say, 

“ Miss Hartley is, indeed, one of the fairest 
specimens of nature’s workmanship, both in person 
and mind.” 

“ Why, you praise her with the cold science of a 
connoiseur, and the frigidity of a stoical philoso- 
pher,” said Orville ; “ we, in our regions are not 
content with such frozen praise of a beauty, who 
has created the greatest sensation of the season. 
She is our reigning toast; isn’t she?” and the cir- 
cle nodded assent. “ There is not a heart left 
artiong us since her appearance — is there?” and 
again a general assent was given. “ She is, in- 
deed, charming. Her eyes are of the celestial 


blue, which Michael Angelo has chosen for his 
Madonna, while her form might have served for the 
model which has enabled Canova to emulate the 
sculptor of the Medician Venus.” 

The heart of Forrester sickened as he heard these 
praises of Emily from the lips of Orville. His own 
sensitive passion was of too delicate a-^ature to in- 
dulge in the praise of its object to indifferent per- 
sons ; and he considered Emily as a subjet too sa- 
cred for such a public discussion of her merits. He 
shrunk from her beauties being thus canvassed by 
a set of young men, who, perhaps, only looked 
upon her charms with the eyes of libertines ; and, 
alarmed and disgusted, he retired from the circle, 
thinking to seek a temporary retirement, and to 
lose a sense of his pain in the thickest of the 
crowd. 

This was unlike Orville’s general conduct ; but 
he knew the sensitive disposition of Forrester well, 
and w'as aware that nothing was so likely to drive 
him back again into the country as a perpetual sys- 
tem of badinage. 

He was perfectly aware that Emily’s heart had 
not yet been so entirely deadened to her former 
predilections, but that the sight of Forrester might 
revive the tenderness of their remembrance. These 
feelings were as yet only stifled, not eradicated, 
by the bustle and excitement in which she 
lived. 

He determined, therefore, to drive him from the 
field by ridicule, which should lower him in the es- 
timation of Emily, and alarm him by the display of 
the power of her charms and the number of rivals 
with whom he would have to contend. Orville like- 
wise derived an additional zest to his pursuit in the 
idea of successfully rivalling one whose conduct and 
philosophy was such a complete satire upon his 
own system. Forrester watched Emily at a dis- 
tance the whole evening, and saw', wdth a pain 
which he vainly attempted to banish from his 
heart, that her hand was sought for every dance by 
the gayest and highest persons in the room; and 
between these and himself he could not refrain 
from drawing comparisons by no means favorable 
to his own pretensions. Tired of a scene, the gay- 
ety of which was such a contrast to his own 
thoughts and feelings, and in the midst of which he 
felt like some wandering and uneasy spirit, he quit- 
ted the rooms in disgust; but not without having 
been subjected to the blandishment of the elegant 
hostess, who only added to his pain by the display 
of her irresistible manners. Forrester drove to his 
hotel more than half confirmed in the truth of his 
fears, and throwing himself dressed upon his bed, 
he gave way to the agonies of his soul at the idea 
of losing one whom he had hitherto looked upon 
as his own. He recollected, however, that he had, 
as yet, seen her only in the midst of a gay and gid- 
dy crowd, w'here the perpetual attentions she re- 
ceived made her no longer mistress of her own ac- 
tions. He hoped, therefore, that in the quiet of the 
morning he might find her still the same unsophis- 
ticated girl she had quitted the country ; he began 
to blame himself for judging too hastily, and reflect- 
ed that a crowded party was not the place for him 
to have sought a first interview, or a proper oppor- 
tunity for Emily to have displayed her real pleasure 
at his presence. With reflections such as these ha 
contrived at length to quiet his mind and heart 


40 


THE OXONIANS. 


although he envied the glee with which Thomas 
boasted of the little success of his French rival, 
and of the complete set down” which he had 
given MoLinseer. 

In the mean time, every attempt was made on 
the })art of Lord Orville and his family to prevent 
any effect being produced upon their plans by the 
sudden appearance of Forrester. His mauvaise 
honte was descanted upon ; the country determin- 
ed as his proper sphere, and his quick disappearance 
from the party made use of as an argument against 
him; till, half forgetting all her former ideas of his 
excellence, Emily became ashamed of defending 
her old friend, and partly influenced by the opinions 
of those about her. 

Lady Orville was, however, alarmed lest the 
visit of Forrester should throw difficulties in the 
way of the accomplishment of her plans. She 
dreaded his strong common sense, and the repre- 
sentations he might make of what he might observe 
as to the dissipations of Orville House, which were 
of a character quite sufficient to alarm a less tender 
and tenacious mother than Lady Emily Hartley; 
while she doubted whether either Emily or Hartley 
were sufficiently impressed with the opinion she 
wished them to entertain of Lord Orville and his 
sister, to make them for a moment hesitate in obey- 
ing the slightest of her wishes. There was also some- 
thing about Forrester himself, that in spite of her 
ridicule, inspired her with a degree of respect that 
she very seldom felt for any of his sex ; and she 
was not quite so given up to the follies end vices 
of those among whom she had so long existed, as 
to be insensible to the power such a man might 
have over a woman’s heart. 

Divested of the tinsel of brilliant manners, out- 
ward accomplishments, and fashionable coxcombry, 
she could not but acknowledge the inferiority of 
the generality of those men by whom her parties 
were filled, to the unassuming Forrester; and felt, 
in the sentiments which he had inspired in her own 
breast, a much more formidable rival to her son, 
than that 3 mung peer, in his own self-sufficiency, 
would acknowledge in a mere worthy country 
gentleman. 

Anxious upon this point, she took the opportunity 
of the close of the party of urging the point with 
Lord Orville; and taking his arm to her dressing- 
room, “Orville,” said she, “ I am anxious to know 
how you succeed with Emily.” 

“ Admirably ! I think we have quite annihi- 
lated any little chance that Forrester might have 
had of remaining in possession of her heart ;” re- 
plied Orville, in that tone of careless coxcombry 
w.’tn which he generally addressed a mother who 
ii'dd inspired him with so little respect. 

Lady Orville shook her head, then musing for a 
moment, “But your marriage with her?” 

“That, madam, is not quite resolved on.” 

“ I know very well, Orville, that you have not 
absolutely asked the question — But then” 

“ O, pardon me, madam, I do not apprehend any 
objection on her part,” interrupted he, with self- 
sufficiency. 

“ What then 1 my son.” 

“ Why, I have not at all made up mt mind on 
the subject of marriage 

“ How I — why, Orville — ^you wouldn’t 1” 

^ That I don’t know, ma’am.” 


“But what can you want in a wife that Miss 
Emily Hartley does not possess 1” asked Lady Or- 
ville. “ Her beauty” 

“ Is exquisite, I allow,” said Orville ; “ enough 
so for a mistress, too much so perhaps for a wife ;” 
interrupted Orville, as he took a pinch of snuff. 

“ What,” asked Lady Orville, “ is not beauty one 
of your requisites in a wife 1” 

“ In a neighbor’s — a friend’s — ^yes, ma’am ; in 
one’s own — ’tis a difficult matter to solve, and I 
have not quite made up my mind ;” replied Or- 
ville, with that appearance of coxcombry which he 
so well knew how to assume. 

“ But then, her immense fortune — the influence 
of her family, and my wishes]” pursued Lady Or- 
ville. 

“ These are certainly arguments in her favor — 
particularly the latter.” This was said with a 
drawling and rather a satirical tone, at which La- 
dy Orville bit her lip. “ But you know I am some- 
what of a' roving disposition, and I am not quite 
certain that I should flirt with so much freedom 
with other men’s wives abroad, while I thought 
there was one with whom rny friends might think 
proper to return the compliment at home.” 

Lady Orville again bit her lip, indignantly. 
There was a want of filial respect in the expression 
of such sentiments which she felt bitterly, and yet 
dared not reprove, lest the altercation might pro- 
duce observations that she dared not court, and 
could meet only with anger. 

With a forced smile, therefore, she faintly said, 
“ Orville, you are incorrigible ; but do not throw 
away the golden harvest 1 have prepared for you, 
and pray let it be a double marriage. Good night !” 
and she hastily retreated into her dressing-room to 
hide the bitter and indignant feelings excited by his 
disrespect. Feeling doubly painful from the con- 
viction that her conduct had afforded but too much 
apology for such treatment. Orville bowed lowly 
as the dressing-room door shut him from her sight ; 
and as he crossed the vestibule, he half thought 
and half soliloquized : “ A double-marriage, my 
Lady mother seems to be of the same opinion with 
he, who thought it some consolation to be hanged 
in company.” — Then humming an Italian air, he 
entered the private unblazoned carriage in which 
his secret expeditions w'ere generally undertaken, 

and drove to Square, the worthy son of 

such a mother ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CONTRAST. 

Lady Orville had truly described herself as a 
busy woman, in the midst of a busy wmrld — for 
her plots and intrigues were so numerous, embraced 
so many objects, and diverged into so many rami- 
fications, that her active mind was for ever on the 
stretch of full employment. With that influence, 
however, which she derived from the adventitious 
circumstance of rank and fortune, what a vast deal 
of real good might not have been emanated from a 


THE OXONIANS. 


41 


mind possessed of so much energy ; but the grati- 
fication of one early bias — the being overpowered 
by one youthful passion, occasioning a first dere- 
Uction from moral principle, turned her from good 
to evil. Instead of retracing her steps — instead of 
regaining the position she had lost in her own opi- 
nion, she thought only of the preservation of that of 
others ; certain, that as long as she succeeded in 
this object, in a worldly sense, she was secure. 
Lady Orville had early loved with that passionate 
fondness which wmmen of her temperament only 
know. The feeling had been excited by a man 
well calculated to give an ingenuous woman a no- 
tion of the perfection of human nature, as far as 
person and accomplishments were concerned. He 
had been struck by her peculiar style of beauty — 
her raven tresses — her dark eye, changing in its 
color and brightness with the varying sentiments 
of her soul — her form, growing, with her mind, 
into premature and precocious womanhood, were all 
calculated to ignite the uncontrolled passions of a 
libertine; and such, indeed, in the full extent of 
the word, was the man upon whom Lady Cecilia 
Devereux had fixed the first passionate feelings of 
her young heart. 

Almost domesticated together, from the near 
connection existing between their different fami- 
lies; every opportunity was afforded to Arlington 
to cultivate and increase the growing passion, 
of which, young as he was, his experience in wo- 
man soon made him sensible. Deluded by his 
attentions, Cecilia, on her part, never avoided him; 
she was too proud to imagine for a moment that 
any man could have other intentions towards a 
woman of her rank than those of marriage; she 
felt that she loved him with her whole soul, 
and, unused to curb her inclinations, or to restrain 
her caprice, she gave herself up to the society 
of one, who, to use her own words, had first 
called her heart and its feelings into existence. 

Lady Cecilia had heard and read of seduction 
and desertion ; and, with the rest of her sex, had 
shuddered at and vituperated the villanies of men. 
But she thought these circumstances only took 
place with inferior orders of women, and never 
imagined any man, however presumptuous, would 
for a moment contemplate, or even be guilty of, 
such conduct towards herself. 

Her insidious love encouraged this self-security, 
at the same time that Arlington fed the high pas- 
sions which endangered it by every means in his 
power. Delicate sentiments, subversive of moral 
principles, were inculcated ; a style of reading 
which effectually, though gradually, undermines a 
strict sense and respect for virtue, was introduced ; 
and Lady Cecilia only awakened from her deli- 
rium to find herself one of those seduced and 
deserted beings which she supposed to belong only 
to a different order of society ; and the victim 
of one of those men whose conduct she had vitu- 
perated, and whose power she had despised. 

When she first discovered that Arlington never 
intended to make her his wife, or at least had 
changed his purpose, her proud heart could scarcely 
refrain from taking such a vengeance upon her 
betrayer, as would have exposed herself and ruined 
her name for ever. Her only confidant, however, 
had sufficient prudence to regulate the violence of 
passion, so as to secure the preservation of her 


fame. This lady, entreatfng, and succeeding in 
procuring, Arlington's temporary absence; urged 
the immediate acceptance of the old Earl of Orville, 
who had long been a suitor to Lady Cecilia, 
as a husband. Smothering all the indignation to 
W'hich Arlington had transformed her love, and 
determining still on some future and signal re- 
venge, she saw, as the violence of her feeling sub- 
sided, the necessity as well as the prudence of 
silencing any thing like an invidious report. The 
old Earl was therefore accepted, the marriage has- 
tened, and the remembrance, or at least the effects, 
of Cecilia’s early crime, concealed beneath the 
blazonry of a coronet. 

Her mind, however, had been essentially per- 
verted. Her naturally violent passions, once let 
loose, burst through the floodgates of reason and 
restraint, and carried her impetuously along in 
their wild career. She soon heartily despised a 
husband who submitted to all her dictates with the 
obedience of a dotard ; she considered his name 
the only valuable appendage of her marriage, and 
used his authority only as a cloak to cover her 
excesses, and to preserve her caste in that society, 
where she was still received and courted, from the 
convenient opinion of “ a blot being no blot till it 
is hit.” Her beauty made her attractive to the 
men, and her wit rendered her formidable to the 
women ; so that, through admiration on the one 
side, and fear on the other, the Countess of Orville 
had led a splendid career ; till time, lowering the 
influence of some passions, and heightening that 
of others, had made her as ambitious of power as 
she had formerly been of pleasure. 

In several instances Lady Orville had so far 
overstepped the prescribed bounds, that none other 
but herself would probably have been able to have 
preserved her station; but she knew the world 
well, and the effect of these instances was imme- 
diately obliterated by some splendid fete, more 
brilliant than that which had gone before. Orville 
House was a delightful mansion for the dissi{>ated, 
and the many shut their eyes, or closed their ears 
to the rumors of frailties, of which there were no 
flagrant proofs to substantiate the correctness, 
rather than debar themselves from the convenience 
and pleasure of visiting Orville House. 

There was a certain set, however, whom Lady 
Orville, with all her arts, could never tempt within 
her doors; and into whose circle she could never, 
with all her talents and brilliant powers of enter- 
tainment, gain admittance with any degree of inti- 
macy. These were not those who deemed them- 
selves exclusives, merely from the circumstance of 
elevated rank and fashion ; but who set a higher 
value on an untarnished name, than upon either 
of these adventitious claims to distinction ; and who 
would not permit their daughters to visit or to be 
seen in any mansion where scandal had been busy 
with the name of its mistress. In spite of the sway 
and influence she held in the fashionable world, 
and which made her the envy of two-thirds of her 
numerous acquaintance, this exclusion from the 
most select, though perhaps not the highest in rank, 
imbittered many hours of Lady Orville’s existence ; 
for, with all the bravado with which, in her letters 
to her divorcee friend, she treated the opinions and 
ceremonies of the world, and of society ; and in 
spite of the contempt with which she chose to treat 


42 


THE OXONIANS. 


them in her correspondence, or in the immediate 
circle of her intimates, where a mask was no longer 
necessary, there w’as no person more sensitive to, 
or who shrunk with more horror and dismay from 
the effects of any rumor that would have imparted 
to herself the slightest dereliction from the estab- 
lished rules of society. Neither was there any 
person who visited the discovered derelictions of 
her friends wdth more seventy than Lady Orville. 

Lady Orville has already mentioned her inten- 
tion of inviting to Orville House, on his arrival 
from India, her cousin, Admiral Frankley, who was 
immensely rich, and whose wealth the Countess 
had determined should be distributed in her family. 
To ensure this, it was necessary to keep from him 
a niece, the daughter of a beloved sister whom he 
had treated harshly on account of her marriage, 
and to whom, from sheer repentance, he was very 
likely to leave the whole of his fortune. 

A long and arduous professional life at sea had 
only permitted Admiral Frankley to see his cousin, 
the Countess, occasionally when on shore, and dur- 
ing these visits he had been charmed by the open, 
hearty manner in which he had been greeted, and 
by the welcome with which he had been received. 
Now, therefore, that he had retired from active ser- 
vice, he gladly embraced the proposition of remain- 
ing at Orville House until he had completed an 
establishment of his own. 

The previous visits, however, of the gallant 
admiral had never been made during the height of 
the London season; and arriving before Lady 
Orville expected, or was prepared for him, he had 
no idea of the life into which he was so suddenly 
introduced, and by which his head was literally 
bewildered. 

The perpetual parties, the incessant occupation 
of the knocker, and the continued hurry of party 
after j:)arty, made him think every body niad, and 
he began to fear they would drive him so likewise. 
As to the routs; he would rather have fought an 
enemy’s seventy four, or sailed through the Darda- 
nelles, under the fire of the batteries, than have 
encountered the noise and confusion which attended 
them; and it was with some difficulty that by 
closing his doors he excluded the noise attendant 
upon them. 

Warm in his temper, as the climate in which he 
had passed so great a portion of his life, he was as 
unable to control the passion into which he was 

thrown by what he called the d d follies of the 

people around him, as he was to get rid of his sea 
habits, and assimilate his pursuits to those of Lady 
Orville and her family. But if there was the vio- 
lence, there was also the generosity of the sailor. 
If there was the roughness of the element on which 
he had passed his life, there was an excellence of 
heart that compensated for all his foibles. Brave 
as a lion, he was gentle as a lamb to the leadings 
of affection ; and the only thing which he swore 
he never could nor would forgive was that want 
of sincerity, which he technically called fighting 
under false colors. 

One may easily imagine such a character very 
much misplaced in an establishment where the 
whole system was one universal deception, where 
all was one scene of social fraud, from the blandish- 
ments of the mistress down to the civility of the 
servants But that which annoyed him more 


than any thing, was his being denied to his friends 
by the porter. 

Some short time after his arrival he burst into 
the boudoir of the Countess, quite in a phrensy 
of passion, and indulged himself in a pretty round 
oath or two against the porter of the establishment. 

“ Come, my dear Admiral,” exclaimed the 
Countess, who was determined to humanize him, 
as she called it, if possible; you know yon have 
promised me to give up this odious sea habit of 
swearing.” 

“ D it, my lady cousin, a’n’t I breaking 

myself of it as fast as I can,” retorted the Ad- 
miral ; “ and if your ladyship, and your people, 
would break yourself of your odious land habit of 
lying, I should not have so much occasion for my 
sea habit of swearing.” 

“ Lying, my dear Admiral 1” 

“ Lying, yes lying, my lady cousin. Have not 
I just heard of my old messmate. Jack Martin, 
hoisting the lion’s head signal at your door for me 
yesterday, and that your jackanapes of a porter 

told him ‘ not at home.’ D -, well I wont 

swear, but I really believe that fellow is w’ound up 
by your ladyship in the morning, and lies by clock- 
work all the day.” 

“Nay, my dear Admiral, that is no lie,” replied 
her ladyship. 

“No lie — but it isn’t the truth tho’, and •, 

no I won’t swear; but curse me if I know any 
thing so like a lie as that which is just the con- 
trary to the truth,” retorted the admiral. 

“ But, my dear Admiral, this is one of the white 
lies which is rendered necessary by the present 
state of society,” said Lady Orville. 

“ Then society must }>e in a , well, well, in 

a very bad state, to require such a system,” rei- 
terated the admiral. 

“But, after all what does it signify, my dear 
Admiral, whether you sivw the poor Lieutenant or 
not?” asked Lady Orville. 

“ D it, madam, I beg your pardon for swear- 
ing, but that Admiral ought to be ,” here 

Lady Orville made a sign, “ well, well, I wont 
swear, but that Admiral ought to be — — , you 
know what I mean, who could bear to shut the 
port-hole of his house in the face of that mess- 
mate on shore, who had boldly stood the brunt of 
an enemy’s tire at sea.” 

“ Well, well. Admiral, only favor me with a 
list of the persons to whom you wish to be at 
home.” 

“ At home !” exclaimed the Admiral, interrupt- 
ing her, “ I am at home to the whole world. As 
I have faced my enemies abroad, I can face my 
friends at home. I never make promises I don’t 
mean to fulfil, nor contract debts I don’t mean 
to pay. Nor is there a face I’m ashamed to 
see in the world, excepting the unblushing one of 
a modern fine Lady, or the effeminate one of what 
you call an exquisite.” 

“ But then you know,” said Lady Orville, in 
her sweetest voice, “ to persons of our rank, there 
are so many applications for charity, relief, and one 
nonsense or another.” 

“ Then the least we can do,” again interrupted 
the Admiral, “ is to see the applicants ourselves, 
that if we can’t relieve their wants, the kindness 
of our refusal may soften their disappointment. 


THE OXONIANS. 


43 


and not leave them to suppose our hearts as hard 
as our door, from the surliness of the porter who 
shuts it in their face.” 

“ But, my dear Admiral, there are some trouble- 
some visiters, who, without such a regulation as 
this would be always intruding themselves into 
our drawing-rooms.” 

“I know there are,” rejoined the Admiral; 
•‘there are your young puppies with their waspish 
waists and empty pates, who set themselves up 
for men, w’hile the razor makes voyages of dis- 
covery on their chin, without being able to find a 
hair. These I would bow out of the door, and 
send back to their boarding-schools. Then there 
are your mustached and whiskered foreigners, who, 
with their tweedle dum and tweedle dee, give them- 
selves the airs of princes, set young women mad, 
and ruin our native fiddlers. These I would kick 
out the window.” 

“Well, but my dear Admiral — ” 

“ And well, but my dear lady cousin ; who 
knows, I say, but that my poor lost niece may find 
out her hard-hearted uncle, and one day knock at 
the door, and he turned adrift upon the wide and 
pitiless ocean of life, without a pilot or a rudder, 
through one of these cursed white lies of ‘not at 
home.’ ” 

“ Ah, Admiral,” said Lady Orville, with a 
sigh, “I am afraid your hopes of discovering 
your niece are futile. It is now two years since 
her father failed.” 

“ Ha — that rascal to marry my poor sister under 
false colors, and against my father’s consent, and 
then to hide her and her child from me in their 
poverty.” 

“ Ay, ay, I always predicted how it would end ; 
merchant’s wives, indeed, setting up to vie with 
their betters,” exclaimed Lady Orville. 

“ Betters, Lady Orville ! the wife of a British 
merchant has no betters ; she sits like the figure 
of Britannia in the corner of a seachart, with the 
horn of plenty in her hand, and the four quarters 
of the globe pouring out their riches at her feet. 
Nor is there any one more entitled to the enjoy- 
ment of luxuries himself, than the merchant, who 
risks his fortune to procure them for others.” 

“ Excepting the sailor, who fights for their pre- 
servation, my dear Actmiral,” interrupted Lady 
Orville, in her most insinuating tones of flattery ; 
« I think you will allow that.” 

“Eh, what] Egad, you are right,” chuckled the 
Admiral. “ Yes, certainly, the sailor — Egad, my 
lady cousin, you arc a very sensible woman, when 
you suffer your heart to speak instead of your 
education — yes, yes, those who fight for them, in- 
deed ; d it, that’s a good speech, cousin Or- 

ville — and one may swear at what one hears so 
seldom.” 

Lady Orville smiled at the effect of a little 
flattery, even upon the rude nature of the rough 
and honest seaman ; and the idea passed through 
her mind, that human nature was the same in 
every class of society ; and that flattery, properly 
administered, was a dose suited to every palate. 
It is the difference of the seasoning, thought she, 
and its influence is the same over all mankind. 

“ But, my lady, this niece of mine ; have you 
yet learned any intelligence of her]” anxiously 
asked the Admiral. 


Lady Orville thought this a good opportunity to 
strike a blow, which she had long meditated, at 
the claims of this niece, whom she considered the 
only obstacle to her certainty of the Admiral’s 
fortune. 

“ Why, Admiral,” said she, musing, and speak- 
ing with apparent unwillingness, “ to be candid 
with you but now it will give you pain.” 

“ Speak out, my lady, speak out, never mince 
the matter; if you have got any thing to say, 
say it.” 

“ But really, my dear Admiral, it grieves me to 
utter any thing that may give you pain;” and 
Lady Orville again hesitated. 

“ Fire away, my lady — speak — never mind 
me.” 

“ Why then. Admiral,” continued the Countess, 
“you know in our inquiries about your sister’s 
child, we traced her and her father to Devon- 
shire.” 

“ Well, I know it,” said the Admiral, anx- 
iously. 

“ On his death (this is the painful part of the 
intelligence), we could hear nothing farther of your 
niece, than that she had suddenly quitted the 
place, in company with a young gentleman, nearly 
a stranger, but who had been very assiduous in his 
attention to her for some few weeks previous to 
the old gentleman’s death ; and they do say, but 
the world is always very scandalous, that her con- 
duct with regard to this young gentleman hastened 
that melancholy event.” 

“ It’s a lie. It’s a » , but I won’t swear — 

but I’m sure it’s a lie. What, the daughter of my 
sister Fanny. , I won’t believe it.” 

“ I would not give credence to it at first. Indeed 
I am very unwilling to believe it now ; but there 
was, I am afraid, intelligence too positive to be 
doubted,” continued Lady Orville ; “ and it has 
been this that has made us all so backward in 
talking on the subject.” 

“I’m thunderstruck!” exclaimed the Admiral, 
W'ho, independently of the impossibility of his sus- 
pecting Lady Orville of any other falsehood than 
one of her harmless white lies, was always too 
ready to give credence to every thing he heard ; 
“ I’m thunderstruck ! a daughter of my sister 
Fanny! But who is the villain] I’ll hunt him 
through the world ! I’ll have him hanged at the 
yard-arm ; I’ll blow him to atoms at the muzzle of 
a four-and-twenty-pounder. I’ll — oh, my poor sis- 
ter ! I am glad she did not live to see it. But, 
my lady, are you sure ; are you certain ]” 

“We will send for those from whom we have 
gained our information, my dear Admiral, and yon 
shall judge for yourself ; perhaps you may detect 
something that may throw a doubt upon our sur- 
mises.” 

“ I’m sure I shall. Send directly,” exclaimed 
the agitated Admiral ; “ send for them directly, my 
Lady ; and I’ll cut their tongues out if I find that 
they have lied.” 

“Nay, nay, my dear Admiral, calm yourself; 
and I will, in the mean time, send after the people 
from whom this information has been obtained.” 

At this moment Langley was announced, as 
being in the drawing-room. He having promised 
to convoy the Admiral as he called it, through the 
new streets of the metropolis. 


44 


THE OXONIANS. 


“Hush, ray Lady; not a word before him. 
Though 1 like this fellow too, for he rescued me 
from those rackety young fellows; hut he always 
appears to me scudding under false colors ; hanging 
out smiles, and having nothing but sighs and tears 
abroad. Well, well, you’ve shocked me. I’ll 

be , well, I won’t swear — no, I won’t — I’ll 

forget the unworthy slut. No, 1 can’t. When 
she’d such an uncle too ! But she did not know 
that ; however, never mind. My Lady, your hand 
and he handed Lady Orville from her boudoir to 
the drawing-room, with all the punctilio of the old 
school. 

Lady Orville congratulated herself on the suc- 
cess of this hint, upon which she built her hopes of 
driving his niece entirely from his mind. The 
great difficulty was, what to do with the x^dmiral, 
so as to blind him to all her other intrigues and 
manoeuvrings; and being afraid to leave him much 
to his own observation, all she could do was to find 
employment and amusement for him. 

To expect more than common attention to the 
old gentleman, from a son and daughter, who, with 
no very great degree of filial respect for their 
mother, 'had all their own schemes of pleasure to 
attend to, she knew was useless ; she had there- 
fore pressed two or three of the young danglers 
about Orville House into the service, and who were 
only too happy to oblige the gay Countess, to act 
as cicisboes to the old Admiral, who could do very 
well as long as he was not left alone. Among 
these Langley was the foremost, and generally the 
most constant. He had first met the old Admiral 
at the opera, where he had inadvertently wandered 
into the coif/mes ; but, astounded and bewildered 
by the exhibition he there witnessed, he thought 
Bedlam had been let loose, and not being able to 
find his way back to the front of the house, had 
been misdirected by some roguish sparks, into a 
passage which led him under the stage, where 
Langley, attracted by his lusty, “ yeo-ho’s,” and 
“ avasts,” found him in the dark, grappling, as he 
called it, with a trap-door, not knowing which way 
to turn himself; and half-frightened out of his 
senses at the hubbub of the machinery, which he 
said, “made such an infernal noise down in that 
d — d cockpit.” 

They afterward met at Orville House, and it 
being among Langley’s numerous plans, to make 
some use of the interest of that family, which had 
been most profusely promised by the young Earl, 
he did every thing to keep in favor with the 
Countess. Finding, therefore, that paying court to 
the old Admiral was a very acceptable, as well as 
not an unpleasant mode of accomplishing his end, 
an intimacy was established between them, which 
proved agreeable to both. 

The Admiral thought him a good fellow, and 
hearing from the Countess of his misfortunes, he 
wished that he had been brought up to the navy, 
that he might have got him promoted. 

This Langley set down to the score of his usual 
ill-luck ; here he had made a friend, and a powerful 
one, but unfortunately his power and influence lay 
in a direction where it could be of no utility to him. 
He could be of no use at the Admiralty ; he was 
too old to commence the service as a mid. 

Admiral Frankley had been so long used to 


command, and to be implicitly obeyed at sea, that 
he could not help exerting the same authority on 
shore. 

Like many others, he had his hobby-horse or 
mania. It was, however, an amiable one, since it 
consisted in an attempt at making people happy. 
It is true that, like many others, he wished to ac- 
complish his end in his own way rather than 
in theirs. Although unmarried, and generally 
railing against the holy estate of matrimony, no 
old maid had a greater inclination to match-making 
than himself; he delighted in discovering an at- 
tachment, and prided himself in accelerating an 
eclaircissement. In this pursuit, however, he 
w'as far from being very successful; for, once 
imbibing a notion that two people were attached to 
each other, it was with great difficulty that he 
could believe himself mistaken ; and thus he often 
produced extraordinary scenes, and placed persons 
in very awkward situations by attempting the 
denouement of an attachment which had existed 
only in his own imagination. On these occasions 
the poor Admiral was a complete marplot, and the 
moment he took it into his head that any one in 
whom he was interested had taken a “ cargo 
of love aboard,” he watched both parties with 
a jealousy equal to that of the lovers themselves; 
interfered at every stage of the business; took 
upon himself to do quite as much as though 
he were the father or guardian of one or both 
of them ; and above all, never permitted what he 
called “ false colors” to be hung out, by either one 
or the other, without doing his utmost to expose 
their hypocrisy. 

It may easily be supposed that this was rather 
an awkward character to be placed in the midst 
of such a manoeuvring family as that of the Or- 
villes ; and, more particularly, from the Hartley 
family, as well as the father of Forrester, having 
been old and valued friends of the Admiral, he 
thought himself authorized to interfere in all their 
plans. 

He had heard of Forrester’s attachment, and 
had been led to understand that it was returned by 
Emily: thus Lady Orville had the greatest diffi- 
culty in preventing his promoting their union 
so contrary to her wishes and projects. At the 
same time she sought to take advantage of this 
disposition, by attempting to persuade him that 
Emily was attached to her son; being fully aware 
that, if he once imbibed this idea, he would do 
every thing to bring about the match, and perhaps 
influence Orville to determine on the marriago 
by some decisive promise with regard to the dispo- 
sition of his own property ; for she saw that 
his attachment to the Hartleys was such, that 
they would certainly share his fortune with her 
own children, should the Admiral die without 
discovering his niece. Thus the double marriage 
of the children became doubly desirable. 

Here was a web which it took all Lady Orville’s 
abilities to weave successfully ; and a series of 
plans, which were every moment in danger of 
derangement by the open-honesty of the straight- 
forward Admiral. He, however, seeing various 
couples proceeding in the path to matrimony, was 
delighted at promoting what he conceived to be 
the wishes of all parties, and soon became as busy 


THE OXONIANS. 


45 


•s Lady Orville herself in the politics of the 
various marriages which he imagined to be on the 
tapis. 



CHAPTER XV. 

DREAMS AND REALITIES. 

Much time was spent by Langley in unprofit- 
able scheming, which ought to have been devoted 
to active exertion. Petitions and solicitations were 
dreamed of, and their success anticipated, but never 
acted upon. No project was planned, either by 
himself or his wife, that Langley did not resolve to 
adopt; but these resolutions were never put into 
effect. From the moment any project was con- 
ceived, his active and sanguine mind began to 
imagine the result ; and he would walk for hours 
ruminating upon the events that might accrue, 
imagining the whole history of his future life to 
which the pursuit of this plan was to give a new 
coloring ; and would return home without having 
taken one step towards the accomplishment. His 
wife saw this failing with regret; lamented it with 
bitterness, and became almost hopeless of any 
change in a disposition which, from habit, was be- 
come almost a disease. 

As poverty, however, pressed more closely; as 
the bitterness of his fate daily increased ; as every 
hope which, almost unacknowledged by himself, he 
had cherished, that the justice of the heir at law 
W'ould at last make some provision, out of the im- 
mense w'ealth which he had derived so unex- 
pectedly, for one whom his prosperity had rendered 
pennyless, faded away, he at length became roused 
by the necessity of effecting something. 

Lord Orville had been profuse in his promises; 
l angley felt himself to be well received by the 
family ; he was always a welcome guest at the 
table; was never “de trop” in Lady Orville’s 
carriage or Opera box ; and was frequently the 
young Peer’s companion in his St. James’s morn- 
ing stroll, or in his cabriolet promenade in the 
Park. These noble people likewise frequently 
condescended to make use of him in various ways. 
His talents were such as rendered him an agreeable 
companion ; there was no way in which his pre- 
sence could cross any of their various schemes ; 
and Langley was pronounced by all to be a parti- 
cular favorite at Orville House. 

All these circumstances had been revolved in his 
own mind, and elaborately detailed to his wife by 
Langley, when he determined on making the ap- 
plication alluded to in a foregoing chapter : and the 
knowledge of the actual power which the Orvilles 
possessed by their influence in various quarters, 
really afforded them very rational grounds for his 
hope of success. 

Still, however, day after day passed without the 
experiment having been made. Jjangley would 
remain for hours picturing to himself the reception 
which would be given to this petition, and imagin- 
ing a long train of results which promoted him 
froia the humble secretaryship, he hoped at first to 


attain, to some prominent and important appoint- 
ment. Yet this, alas, was only in his imagination ; 
and he returned home daily to his wife in the same 
state of poverty, without having advanced one step, 
or made one exertion. 

At length, on the morning after the last party 
described at Orville House, Langley really deter- 
mined to make his long-projected application to 
Lord Orville, who had during the dinner of the 
preceding day, been more than usually kind and 
familiar, and more than commonly profuse in his 
ofters of service. 

On all other occasions, Langley had approached 
Orville House, if not with a light heart, with a 
confident step. Certain of his welcome, with no 
other motive than that of adding to the circle within, 
and suiting his morning arrangements with theirs, 
the knocker was applied with as much ease by 
Langley, as by the most independent of the fre- 
quenters of the gay mansion. This morning how- 
ever, he approached with a slow and hesitating 
step, which became slower as he approached the 
house; twdee he entered the portico, and twice re- 
treated without knocking at the door. At length, 
taking a turn round the square (there is nothing 
like action to restring the relaxed nerves,) he sum- 
moned courage, and gave his usual rap, which was 
alertly attended to by the fat porter, who appeared 
an enviable being at this moment to Langley, since 
he had his place, and had no favors to ask. 

Lord Orville was with Forrester, who, having 
called to pay his respects to Miss Hartley, had been 
purposely shown into the library, where Orville had 
detained him until he heard the carriage roll away 
that was to carry his mother and Emily upon a long 
round of morning visits, and upon a pilgrimage to 
all the lace venders in St. James’s. 

Emily had naturally expected such a visit, yet 
had internally felt it a relief that it had not been 
paid ; though she agreed with Lady Orville in an 
observation, that it was certainly very remiss in 
Mr. Forrester to pass the first morning of his arri- 
val in London without paying his respects, and 
bringing news of her dear Lady Emily. 

Forrester, during his detention by Lord Orville, 
was upon thorns ; for he felt that the result of his 
morning’s interview with Emily might either con- 
firm his fears, or remove his doubts for ever: yet 
Lord Orville was so diffuse in his conversation ; 
entered upon such various subjets ; and discussed 
so many matters, with such an appearance of in- 
terest to himself, that poor Forrester found it impos- 
sible to escape. 

At length being aware that the carriage was 
gone, Orville suddenly finished a sentence with, 
‘‘ But I beg your pardon ; I am detaining you from 
Miss Hartley, who is doubtless anxious to see you, 
and to hear news from the Grove.” He rang the 
bell, and desired the servant to show Mr. Forrester 
up to Miss Hartley. 

“ Miss Hartley has been gone out with my Lady 
some time, my Lord,” said the servant ; to the evi- 
dent mortification of Forrester, and to the apparent 
surprise of Lord Orville. 

To Forrester, suspense was worse than certain- 
ty ; and it was thus continued for an indefinite pe- 
riod, at a time when every moment appeared an 
age. 

At this instant Monsieur Fripon announced 


46 


THE OXONIANS. 


Langley, as desiring to speak with Lord Orville 
alone. 

Forrester, whose heart was ever alive to the dis- 
tress of his fellow-creatures in a moment banished 
the effects of his own disappointment, to inquire of 
Orville if he knew any thing of Langley’s affairs ; 
and if he had yet succeeded in doing any thing to 
redeem his fortunes. 

“ Faith, no !” replied Lord Orville, coldly — “ He 
is a very clever fellow — a genius — quite the fashion 
with a certain set — entertaining beyond any thing ; 
like Yorick, ‘ a fellow of infinite jest.’ He is good 
enough to amuse my friends ; it was all I wanted; 
I inquired no farther — Ah ! my dear Langley, how 
do you doT I am delighted to see you greeting 
the entrance of Langley with a hearty shake of the 
hand. 

“ Quite well, I thank your lordship;” answered 
Langley, with an embarrassed air; for Langley 
w'as not the man to prefer a petition either with 
grace or confidence. 

“ Langley,” said Forrester, also shaking him 
heartily by the hand, “ 1 am glad to renew my ac- 
quaintance with you; and whenever you can quit 
the gay metropolis for a few weeks, remember For- 
rester Lodge will be open to receive you, and you 
will delight me by becoming my guest. — Lord Or- 
ville, I leave you to your business with Ijangley, 
and must charge you with my respects, and the ex- 
pression of my disappointment to Miss Hartley ;” 
and so saying he quitted the room. 

Langley now felt his embarrassment redouble : 
instead of his usual ease of manner, he could 
neither sit nor stand still. He felt a blush steal- 
ing over his face, and his confusion of mind in- 
creased, until he was in some measure relieved by 
Lord Orville saying — 

“ Why, my dear Langley, what made you leave 
us so early last night 1 we had never found you 
more entertaining — but, I suppose, some amour ; 
some love in the case. You poets are devils among 
the women.” 

“ Oh no, my Lord ; no amour,” replied Lang- 
ley; “no love in the case;” and his mind reverted 
to his wife and the second floor. “ I retired grati- 
fied beyond measure at having had the honor to 
contribute to the pleasure of your Lordship’s 
party.” 

“Oh, I never saw you in finer feather; you 
were the zest of the evening. I don’t know what 
we should have done without you.” 

“ Oh I” thought Langley, “ ’tis done ; I am a 
made man, I am a fool not to strike while the iron 
is hot.” 

“But you requested to see me alone?” con- 
tinued Orville. 

“ 7Vue, my Lord, I did take that liberty,” re- 
plied Langley, hesitating — 

“ Liberty ! Langley. Nay, among friends, these 
things are no liberties.” All this encouraged 
Langley to throw off some portion of his diffidence, 
and urged by his necessities, and encouraged 
by Orville’s kindness, he proceeded — 

“ The fact is — I mean — Sir — that is — I have pre- 
sumed that our acquaintance has not endured so 
long v^ithout my pretending to some portion of 


your Lordship's confidence and friendship ” 

Here he came to a full stop ; but was again en- 
couraged by Lord Orville’s replying : 

“ Certainly. I know none of my acquaintance 
I esteem bo much; none so well entitled to my 
esteem.”, 

“ My Lord, you do me honor. It is therefore 
that J presume to remind your Lordship— of the 
kind offers of service you have made me at various 
periods — and of a promise — ” 

“ A promise !” exclaimed Lord Orville. 

“ Yes; one day, after dinner, your Lordship did 
me the honor to promise to use your influence 

with his grace of ; and I now presume to 

remind you of my necessities, and to request its 
performance.” The petition was now fairly out; 
and Langley, with downcast eye, awaited the re- 
sult ; but was immediately relieved by the kindness 
of Lord Orville’s reply. 

“My dear Langley,” said he, “this frankness 
delights me. Believe me, nothing will give me 
greater pleasure than to be of service to one I es- 
teem so much,” 

“ Oh, my Lord, I knew it ; I knew I was not 
wrong in calculating on your Lordship’s kindness,” 
said Langley. 

“ Indeed you were not, Langley,” said Lord Or- 
ville, in a tone of sympathy, calculated to remove 
Langley’s embarrassment. “ Depend upon it, I 
will take the first opportunity of seeing my noble 
friend. I will lay your whole case before him, and, 
backed by my recommendation, have very little 
doubt of success.” 

. “ My Lord, yop overpower me with gratitude. 
I cannot express the fulness of those thanks with 
which my heart is overflowing;” exclaimed Lang- 
ley, nearly overpowered by his feelings. 

“Never mention it, my dear fellow,” replied 
Orville. “ The only use of power is to serve our 
friends; and you will never want one while I am 
here ; and though at present I must wish you a 
good morning, command me on all occasions, I 
beseech you.” 

Langley, in this dismissal, saw only the de* 
licacy which would not prolong the eml)arrassment 
of his situation, or put him to the trouble of return- 
ing his thanks; and saying, “ My Lord, you con- 
found me by your goodness,” pressed Lord Orville’s 
offered hand. “ I take my leave with a deep sense 
of the gratitude I owe your Lordship.” 

“Depend upon my exertions. I trust soon to 
give you a good account of my mission : and to 
congratulate you on its success. Adieu, mon ami. 
Au revoir.” 

Langley could scarce refrain from tears of joy 
and gratitude. His eyes were suffused and his ut- 
terance choked with the fullness of his heart, as he 
hastily quitted the room, internally blessing his pai- 
tron for his kindness ; and ail anxiety to impart to 
his wife the good tidings of his success. Lord Or- 
ville rang the bell, which was immediately answered 
by his valet ; and coolly taking a pinch of snuff, he 
deliberately said : 

“ Fripon, tell the porter to say ‘ Not at home* to 
Mr. Langley for the future.” 


THE OXONIANS. 


47 


' CHAPTER XVI. 

A MEETING. 

On the same morning mentioned in the last 
chapter, Lady Orville, not being at all inclined lor 
visits, proposed a shopping morning’s lounge, and 
took Emily with her. 

The moment that Orville had got rid of Forrester 
and dismissed Langley, he mounted his horse ; and, 
calling for Hartley away they galloped, and catch- 
ing sight of the carriage as it dashed down Regent 
street (^for at that moment there was situated the 
grand emporium of female finery,) they joined it 
in time to hand Lady Orville and Emily into the 
shop ; or, as it is now more politely called, a “ de- 
pot.” There were displayed the productions of 
France and India, to tempt the English guineas 
from English pockets Lady Orville was too well 
known not to meet with immediate attention ; and 
lounging through the rooms with Emily on her 
arm, they were obsequiously followed by the stiff- 
cravatted shopman, who beladyshipped them both 
to a great extent ; and calling for one tempting ar- 
ticle after another, displayed all the new importa- 
tions which had been the result of Mr. H’s. last 
visit to Paris: while Lord Orville poured his insi- 
dious compliments into Emily’s ear, and Hartley 
rattled away with the Countess. 

To enumerate the variety of merchandise which 
here met the apethetic glances of Lady Orville, 
whose? senses were far too ush to be gratified or 
surprised by any thing of the kind, and the asto- 
nished gaze of the less experienced Emily, would 
require volumes. Cashmeres were unfolded, jewel 
cases opened, porcelain vases, and bronzes, and mar- 
bles displayed to the admiring eyes of the behold- 
ers, and a variety of things were ordered. At length 
Lady Orville said, “ By-the-by, my dear Emily, we 
shall want some costume for the Marchioness of 
Tourville’s fancy ball and immediately led the 
way to the dressing-room, telling the attendant that 
the gentlemen must be admitted. Lady Orville’s 
wishes were paramount with the civil shop- 
keepers. 

Doors, which had hitherto been concealed by the 
shelves which contained a variety of articles in front 
of them, were immediately thrown open, and the 
party entered a long room, in which were several 
groups of w’omen ’ at work under various superin- 
tendents. 

Almost the whole of these little sempstresses 
were young women, and some of them exceedingly 
pretty. The entrance of two such fashionable men 
as Lord Orville and Frank Hartley was the signal 
for a number of little espiegleries, and a hundred 
significant glances exchanged between each other, 
a’ I’inm” as the French say, of their task-mis- 
tresses. 

That some of these glances were directed to- 
wards the gentlemen themselves we do not deny ; 
nor did the presence of Lady Orville and Emily 
prevent their being returned in kind ; or impede a 
few whispered compliments, as they took up and 
admired the various articles which were displayed. 
These little whispers w’ere received with affected 
blushes, and a giggle of delight, which was com- 
municated to their companions, by one of the afore- 


said significant glances from the distinguished fair 
one. 

While Emily .was trying on a turban. Lord 
Orville discerned, for the first time, a young female, 
at some distance from her companions, anxiously and 
industriously engaged upon some tambour work. 
This young person unlike the rest, had continued to 
ply her needle without taking any apparent notice of 
the party. She was dressed in deep though humble 
mourning; and contrived so to conceal her face 
by the attitude in which she worked, and by a 
profusion of fine black hair, that Orville could not, 
with all his manceuvring, discover whether she was 
handsome or ugly. 

Withdrawing Hartley from a flirtation with 
two or three young women, who seemed but too 
ready to give both him and his friend encourage- 
ment, by the forwardness of their manners, he 
directed his attention to this newly discovered beau- 
ty, by saying, “ Egad, Hartley, we have missed 
the finest woman in the room, after all, if we may 
judge by her figure.” 

Hartley turned his eyes in the direction pointed 
out by Orville, and saw a person, rather above the 
middle height, bending over a tambour frame. She 
still continued in that position, in which it was im- 
possible to see her face, but her figure seemed to 
be of exquisite proportions. Her head nearly 
rested on the frame, so that her work was nearly 
covered with a profusion of large glossy ringlets. 
Two delicate hands were also perceptible, plying 
the tambour needle with apparently unwearied in- 
dustry ; while a foot, corresponding in proportion 
and beauty with the hands, peeped from beneath 
the black crape dress in which she was so com- 
pletely enveloped, that nothing but the white throat 
was vissible above it. 

« What an attitude and figure for a picture of 
Penelope,” exclaimed Orville, in an under-tone to 
Hartley ; “ we must see her nearer.” 

With this intention, and apparently with the view 
of inspecting her work, they sauntered towards 
the ernbroideress, who sat at some distance from 
her fellow-workwomen, as though she disliked a 
nearer neighborhood. Startled by their approach; 
which was not unobserved by the object of their 
attention ; the only notice she seemed to take of 
it, was by bending her head closer over her frame, 
and striving still more to screen her countenance 
from observation. As they approached, this de- 
termination at concealment became so evident as 
to rouse their curiosity, but although they'had now 
come quite close to her, she did not raise her head. 

They perceived that her hands trembled, and 
that she hardly knew where she placed the needle; 
and as Hartley, at length, leaned quite over her 
work, he heard her breathe so hard and audibly, 
that every respiration seemed almost a sob. At 
this instant, unable any longer to conceal her coun- 
tenance or restrain her agitation, the needle drop- 
ped from her trembling hand, she sunk back in 
her chair, her black hair fell from her face, and dis- 
covered the pale but still beautiful features of Caro» 
line Dormer. 

The effect of this apparition upon Hartley was 
instantaneous. The blood rushed into his face, 
then receded to his heart, leaving him almost as 
pale as Caroline. His cruel neglect flashed at once 
upon his memory ; and it was only owing to Orville’s 


48 


THE OXONIANS. 


presence of mind, who had perceived the recogni- 
tion, that he did not betray his agitation, and ex- 
hibit a scene which might have involved himself 
in ridicule, and excited unworthy suspicions of 
Caroline. 

As it was, the slight commotion attracted the 
attention of one of the task-mistresses ; to whom 
Orville said, that their sudden approach had 
alarmed the young lady ; and, apologising for the 
circumstance, requested a glass of water, to recover 
her. The water was soon brought, accompanied 
by a smart reprimand from the termagant; and 
Orville led Hartley away, while the young ladies 
laughed at the affected squeamishness of Miss 
Dormer. Lady Orville and Emily were, fortunately, 
still intent on the important circumstance of choos- 
ing their dresses for the fancy ball. 

“ I see,” said Orville, “ that she is an old ac- 
quaintance. She is a beautiful girl, and you seem 
to be a happy man. Hartley.” 

“ I would give worlds to speak to her,” replied 
Hartley. 

“ Worlds, nonsense. Worlds, to speak to a 
milliner ! If it be really as you say, that you do not 
know how to obtain an interview, and wish it, why 
not go up and admire her work, and during the con- 
versation, name some time and place] rely upon 
it, it will be attended to.” 

“ Orville, you don’t know her. How she came 
to be in such a situation as this, I am at a loss to 
conceive.” 

“Nay, your curiosity need not long remain un- 
gratified. I see I must still be your tutor, though 
I was in hopes by this time you might go alone.” 
Then, raising his voice, “ by-the-by,” said he, 
“Hartley, I have not given you that address I pro- 
mised you. I will give it now,” and tearing a 
leaf from his pocket-book, he apparently wrote an 
address. Then, showing the paper, instead of an 
address, Hartley read the words, “ I must see you ; 

meet me this evening at at eight ; pray do 

not fail.” “ Is that right]” and he folded it up in 
as small a compass as possible, and gave it to 
Hartley. Then, walking up again in the direc- 
tion of Caroline’s place, he engaged the women 
who were nearest to her in conversation. During 
this period Hartley approached Caroline, as though 
with the intention of merely asking if she had re- 
covered from her fright, and dropped the paper 
upon the work before her. A blush overspread 
her features, a slight sensation of repugnance ap- 
peared to agitate her frame ; then, seizing the 
paper, and hastily hiding it in her bosom, that 
universal pocket of a woman, she cast one glance 
of mingled tenderness and reproach at Hartley, 
and resumed her work; though with such trembling 
hands, that there is little doubt but every stitch 
was obliged to be unpicked, and that the day in 
question proved a “ dies non^^ as far as it regarded 
Caroline’s labor in the service of the Regent-street 
emporium. 

By this time Lady Orville had expended her 
whole stock of curiosity, and became herself tired 
of tiring the patience of her shopkeeping attendants ; 
this was the only circumstance that ever induced 
her to relieve them from the trouble she gave them. 
In her eyes, such people were made for no other 
purposes than to wait upon the pleasures, and to 
lerve the caprices of the great; and the most 


elaborate trouble she could possibly occasion them 
was, in her mind, more than repaid, by a con- 
descending nod of “ good morning,” as she resumed 
her vis-a-vis, and drove away to 1)he park. 

As for Hartley, he had been startled into him- 
self again by the unexpected sight of Caroline, 
A few months of London dissipation, under the 
auspices of such a man as Orville, had not dead- 
ened, though it might have repressed, those gene- 
rous feelings of youth, which were the principal 
characteristics of his heart, when we first saw him 
stealing from his noisy companions to the garden 
of the poor curate at Oxford. 

For the first few weeks thoughts of Caroline 
were perpetually in his mind, and he wrote two or 
three letters, filled with protestations of the same 
warmth of afiection as that which hail characterized 
his conversation at their parting interview. During 
this short period the post time that had brought 
him a letter from her was anxiously looked for, 
and considered the brightest hour of the day. 
A series, however, of dissipated pleasures ; a con- 
stant succession of female society ; two or three 
liaisons, partly platonic and partly of a different 
character; soon relaxed the nerves of his attach- 
ment (if we may use the expression) to Caroline, 
as well as the purity of his mind ; and his own 
neglect of their correspondence soon made the 
appearance of her letters a reproach, rather than a 
pleasure, to him. He suffered them to remain 
unopened for a day on his dressing-table ; and we 
are ashamed to say, that they at length remained 
unanswered, if not unperused. There is ngthing 
so subversive of that generous and virtuous at- 
tachment which the youthful heart feels towards a 
woman as the kind of life into which Lord Orville 
introduced Hartley. It was not, like that of Las- 
celles, sufficiently broad to make his heart turn 
with disgust from the vice, or laxity of morals 
which it exhibited ; but was so disguised with the 
affectation of delicacy, or rather with that substi- 
tution of elegance which so often passes for deli- 
cacy, that there was everything to allure, and 
nothing to disgust. There was sufficient refine 
ment to banish all idea of that grossierete which 
would have driven Hartley at once from the pur- 
suit of pleasure that partook of this character; 
and so much excitement of the passions, kept up 
by the aid of music and conversation, that half the 
minds in the world would have denominated these 
pursuits merely elegant enjoyments, which were 
in fact the mere sensual indulgence of vicious pro- 
pensities. 

In the midst of such a career as this, no wonder 
that Caroline was forgotten ; or, if some recollec- 
tions of her intruded at dres.sing time or in the 
first waking moments of the morning, no wonder 
that they were soon banished by those thickening 
engagements which now filled the visiting book 
of’Hartley. 

Although, however, his heart might not be in- 
fluenced by the mere remembrance of all that had 
passed between them, it could not withstand her 
personal appearance. The unexpected apparition 
in the work-room had recalled him to all that he 
had so long forgotten; the study of the old curate — 
the little garden behind the parsonage — the arbor 
in the green walk — all rushed at once into his 
memory, and called up the long buried, though not 


THE OXONIANS. 


49 


yet dead, aiFections of his heart, “ like spirits from 
the vasty deep;” and they were accompanied with 
many a bitter pang for the undeserved neglect 
with which he had treated Caroline. Her pale 
face, too, and her dim eye, so unlike the buoyant 
health in which he had left her, did not fail to add 
to the impression he had received. 

As they rode to the park, Hartley was two or 
three times on the point of making Lord Orville 
the confidant of his early affection; but, Orville, 
who ridiculed the idea of a serious attachment for 
a milliner, rallied him so unmercifully on his wan 
countenance, and on the evident effect which the 
unexpected meeting had produced, that Hartley 
shrunk instinctively from making the communica- 
tion ; while his heart turned sick at the libertine 
allusions, and the laughing congratulations, with 
which Orville spoke of the sentimental sempstress,” 
and anticipated the result of Hartley’s expected 
interview. 

In agreeing to the solicitation for a meeting, 
Hartley, in spite of his new mode of life, had not 
harbored a thought derogatory to the honor of 
Caroline. The revival of all his old feelings of 
affection, mingled with a strong curiosity to know 
how she could come into such a situation, were the 
principal incentives to the wish ; no evil intention, 
no insidious motive, as yet mingled with his inten- 
tions or his ideas; nor could the raillery of Orville 
induce him to think more lightly of her, because 
he found her in such a situation as that in which 
he had discovered her. 

As for Caroline, she could not recover from the 
effects of this first meeting with Hartley. Although 
it was natural that she should expect to meet him 
in London ; and thought that her heart was pre- 
pared to encounter him with the indifference which 
his neglect of her had deserved ; yet she had cal- 
culated wrongly on her strength ; and under such 
circumstances, what woman could calculate rightly 1 
There was no occasion for a sight of Hartley to 
recall all the scenes of their former intimacy to her 
recollection ; the study, the garden, the arbor, were 
all too strongly impressed upon her memory to re- 
quire any adventitious aid to recall them. A 
woman’s heart does not so easily forget these 
things as that of a man. Such feelings are all in 
all to a woman : while to a man they are in general 
the mere episodes to a greater, though not sweeter, 
excitement. To a man, they are reliefs from the 
severe labors, the more important duties, or rather 
pursuits of life ; to a woman, they are life itself. 
Caroline could scarcely breathe from agitation 
when she placed Hartley’s note in her bosom ; yet, 
jiiough her heart beat against it most tumultuously, 
she could not but acknowledge that it beat less 
unhappily. She hurried away, the first opportunity 
that her task allowed her ; and luckily the pencil, 
and the hurried manner with which it had been 
written, did not permit her to discover that it was 
not Hartley’s own hand-writing. 

At first, the idea of again seeing him to whom 
i^e had devoted her earliest and warmest affection, 
in mutual confidence ; and the hope that the inter- 
view might produce some explanation of Hartley’s 
neglect that would prove it not to have been cul- 
pable, gave to Caroline the only feeling of pleasure 
her poor heart had experienced for months. But 
these hopes, faint as they were, were soon blighted 


at the recollection that, since their parting, circum- 
stances had rendered the distance that existedi 
between their situation still greater than it was 
before. She was then, as now, the daughter of a 
gentleman, though a poor one ; but she was then 
living under his roof, respectably if not splendidly ; 
and mixing in the society of that caste in which 
she had been born : now, she was, in her own 
eyes, deemed a menial ; earning her daily bread, 
the companion of beings of an inferior order, whose 
vulgarity and difference of manners forced them- 
selves unpleasantly, even on the patient and for- 
bearing mind of Caroline. 

If Hartley’s family would have shrunk from the 
thoughts of uniting their son with the daughter of 
a poor clergyman ; with how much more indigna- 
tion would they discard the idea of receiving a 
hired sempstress as his wife — one who labored for 
a weekly pittance on that finery which they were 
born to wear. 

Poor Caroline felt all this, and her heart swelled 
with grief almost to bursting. Though reason 
told her there could be no hope ; and that it was 
better she should continue to think Hartley cruel 
and neglectful, than have her tender feelings again 
roused by being undeceived in a supposition which 
at least called her pride in to her support, if it did 
not conquer her feelings of affection ; yet she still 
clung to the idea of proving him not to be un- 
worthy of the love with which he had inspired 
her; and with this hope she at length determined 
upon granting the solicited interview — and, when 
has woman determined otherwise, than to act upon 
the strong impulses of the heart, rather than upon 
the less vivid arguments of reason. ^ 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE INTERVIEW. 

Caroline Dormer was far superior to the 
situation in which we last saw her ; her education 
had fitted her for other and better things, and her 
mind had not been reduced with her circumstances. 
She had loved Hartley with all the energy and 
devotedness of which her young heart was capable. 
She had wept with agony over his undeserved 
neglect ; but she had suffered in silence. She had 
passively permitted the march of circumstances, 
which had reduced her to her present situation, 
without a struggle to avoid it. Hopeless of him 
she had become hopeless of every thing else ; life 
had become distasteful, and her heart sickened un- 
der the burthen of her disappointment. Pleasure, 
pain, labor, and ease, were alike indifferent; or 
rather, every other feeling and idea was absorbed 
in that one great sensation which occupied every 
thought and feeling of her soul. — Whatever might 
be her occupation. Hartley, his attachment, and 
his neglect were the subjects of her meditation and 
regret. His figure haunted her in her sleep ; and 
her waking dreams always pictured him to her 
imagination, and recalled his broken vows and 
violated promises to her recollection. 


50 


THE OXONIANS. 


Her mind tlius occupied with his image, no 
wonder at the agitation she experienced at the 
sight of him, nor of that which his brief note pro- 
duced. At first, she determined to avoid him : 
she had, during her short residence in London, 
learned enough to know the light in which some 
one or two of her companions were looked upon 
by men their superiors in rank; and though she 
did not place herself upon a level wdth the.se light- 
minded and vain creatures, yet she dreaded Hart- 
ley’s partaking of the same sentiments as the men 
with whom he associated. She saw how different 
the world was in reality to that which they had 
both pictured it in their earliest days; yet was 
there still that tinge of romance in her disposition, 
which, almost unknown to herself, whispered a 
hope that the difference of their rank might not 
prove an insuperable barrier to their union. She felt 
her superiority to her companions, and therefore 
never sunk herself to a level with them in her own 
opinion, and she trusted this superiority would be 
acknowledged by others as well as by herself; 
by her companions themselves it was felt, but only 
to generate their envy, and to tempt their vulgar 
ridicule. 

Caroline had imagined that she had resigned 
herself entirely to her fate, and that she had made 
np her mind to the complete loss of Hartley : his 
appearance, however, soon convinced her to the 
contrary ; and that tinge of the romantic in her 
disposition, in spite of her better reason, soon 
induced her to determine upon granting the de- 
sired interview. This determination, however, was 
not adopted without a great deal of hesitation ; 
though her heart throbbed with affection for Hart- 
ley, it was not free from indignation at his neglect; 
and though her feelings in his favor hurried her 
into hopes that this might be satisfactorily ex- 
plained, yet her better judgment whispered that she 
had belter remain in her present misery, than rim 
the risk of having it removed by temporary happi- 
ness, and renew'ed by future disappointments. It 
is scarcely necessary to say, that womanhood got 
the better of reason ; for, where there is real 
affection in the case, when was it ever otherwise ] 
As the hour approached, her agitation increased ; 
and at the last moment she was on the point 
of relinquishing her determination, when all their 
former meetings rushing at once upon her memory, 
she threw on her shawl, and hurried to the place 
of appointment. 

Hartley was already there; so that she had nei- 
ther the bitterness of that moment of anxious sus- 
pense, which a want of implicit punctuality in such 
appointments occasions; nor the opportunity which 
such a moment might have afforded for reflection, 
and for a change in her resolution. Her agitation 
prevented her meeting the animated greeting of 
Hartley with any thing but a faint sipile. He drew 
her arm silently within his, and, avoiding the crowd 
that was passing through that part of the park 
where they had met ; they sauntered into the more 
solitary walks, to impart to each other all that had 
passed since they had met in the garden of the good 
curate at Oxford. 

Caroline’s simple story was soon told; she had 
no succession of passions to tinge the intervening 
months with variety ; her whole soul had been oc- 


cupied by her love for Hartley, and her grief at his 
desertion, and for the death of her lather. 

'I'be poor curate had been snatched suddenly 
from the world while in the performance of his cle- 
rical duties ; and Caroline found herself left alone, 
utterly unprovided for, with all the ideas and feel- 
ings of a gentlewoman, without the slightest means 
for h.er support. Her father’s successor desired 
possession of the house as soon as decency permit- 
ted him to turn its mourning occupant out; foi 
church preferment is as eagerly and rapaciously 
grasped by the teachers of meekness and Christian- 
ity, as that of a less sacred nature by less sacred 
characters ; and Caroline found herself obliged to 
seek an asylum in the house of a humble and poor 
relative in London. 

Too proud, as well as too just, to owe her main- 
tenance to those who could ill afford to support the 
expense, the moment of her arrival, she urged her 
relative to look out in every direction for some 
means by which she might prevent her being a 
burthen to any one. Caroline was well edOcated, 
and accomplished beyond what might have been 
expected from the limited income of her father. 
Her accomplishments had been derived from her 
mother, who had been a very superior woman; and 
who had imparted ail to her daughter that she had 
derived from a very excellent education. It was 
her wish, therefore, to turn these talents to account, 
and to engage herself as governess in some semi- 
nary, or family. Unhappily, however the little in- 
terest her relative possessed, did not lie in the di- 
rection by which this desirable end could be accom- 
plished ; and for the want of some high recommenda- 
tion, rendered her application after advertised situ- 
ations abortive. 

Tired of maintaining her, this person, having 
at length heard of a vacancy in the establishment in 
Regent street, and knowing Caroline’s ingenuity 
and taste in embroidery, she urged her acceptance 
of it with so much pertinacity, that, repugnant as it 
was to her pride, Caroline became an inmate and a 
sempstress in that emporium of female finery. 

These artless annals of her life were soon reca- 
pitulated by Caroline to her lover, with a truth and 
ingenuousness which Hartley dared not imitate in 
his recital to her. How different, indeed, had been 
his life ! what a detail of infidelities to his vows ! 
what an exhibition of heartless inconstancy; how 
many scenes bordering upon libertinism must he 
not have represented, had he given any true narra- 
tive of the life he had led since their last meeting, 
when he had declared that he loved her, and only 
her ; and that he should love her, and only her, for 
ever. 

The sight of Caroline ; the renewal of their in- 
tercourse ; the artless recital of her melancholy ad- 
ventures; recalled, however, all his former love; 
while the sufferings she had undergone ; the patient 
resignation with which his neglect of her had been 
borne ; gave an additional tenderness to all his 
feelings, that rendered the renewal of this intimacy 
delightful. Hours flew on, while they were thus 
indulging in recollections of their life in Oxford ; 
and it was not till the chimes sounded the three- 
quarters past ten, that Caroline recalled to min^ 
the regulation which compelled her to return to 
Regent street by eleven. With this thought, too 


THE OXONIANS. 


51 


came that of the imprudence of remaining so late, 
and alone, with Hartley ; and what he himself 
might think of such an imprudence, formed not the 
least part of her distress. 

As she detailed this to him, Hartley silently 
cursed Regent street, the tambour frame, and the 
Horse-guards, that so impertinently put them in 
mind of the hour. He had not tasted any pleasure 
- durin,!? his career of dissipation that equalled his 
conversation, and the renewal of his intercourse 
with Caroline. There w'as a freshness about his 
feelings; a renovation of youth in their enjoyment; 
a nature about the delight he had experienced, so 
different from the ^'fade’^ pleasures, derived from 
the artificial women with whom he had lately as- 
sociated, that, in spite of her humble situation, for- 
ced a comparison on his mind not at all unfavorable 
to Caroline. During their short and hurried return 
to Regent street, she had promised to meet him 
again; though she now persisted in her determina.^ 
tion to bring a companion in whom she could con- 
fide : nor could all Hartley’s entreaties to the con- 
trary, make her change this resolution. The mo- 
ment, th'’refi)re, that Caroline should have deter- 
mined on this companion, she was to inform Hartley 
by letter, when he was to make his own appoint- 
ment for another interview. 

With this agreement they parted : Caroline to 
return to her solitary bed, with the recollections of 
the evening for her only companions; and to 
think on all that her lover had said in extenuation 
of his late conduct, and all the promises, which his 
manner, rather than his words, had given her for 
the future: — Hartley, to hurry through a late din- 
ner in his dressing-room, and to pursue his nightly 
career of splendid parties, which left little room for 
recollections of Caroline, till his carriage set him 
down in the Albany, where he had now taken up 
his residence, exhausted by excitement and fa- 
tigue. 

Here, however, the question of his intentions 
with regard to Caroline forced itself upon his mind ; 
but he fell asleep before he could contrive to answer 
it satisfactorily. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

RENCOUNTERS, 

On quitting Lord Orville, Langley flew home to 
delight his wife with the news of his successful 
application ; for successful in the fullest meaning 
of the word did his sanguine mind consider it. To 
his surprise, however, he learned that Mrs. Langley 
was not within ; a circumstance which the more 
surprised him, since, as the concealment of their 
marriage did not permit him to accompany her, she 
very seldom left their humble domicile, excepting 
in the evening with her child. Burthened with 
his good news, Langley was half angry that his 
wife was not at home to share it with him; but 
giving way to his natural inclination for day dreams, 
he sauntered towards the Park, to enjoy, in imagi- 
nation, all the anticipated results of the kind pro- ' 


mises of Lord Orville ; promises which we have 
seen were very likely to be forgotten, and certain 
to be broken by that honorable peer. 

In the mean time, his wife, who had very litile 
dependance upon the performance of her h asband’s 
promise of an application, and almo.st as little upon 
the result of it, even were it made, had quitted 
home, with the determination of seeking out the 
maternal uncle before alluded to. A morning 
paper had announced his arrival in town, and his 
domicile at the house of a titled relation ; and it 
was towards this mansion that Mrs. Langley 
directed her steps. 

Certain that this attempt would never receive the 
sanction of her husband, w'ho, from her uncle’s con- 
duct to her mother at her marriage, had set him 
down as an unfeeling tyrant ; she had taken ad- 
vantage of his absence, which generally lasted the 
whole morning, to make this attempt without his 
knowledge. 

During her walk, she summoned all the rccol- 
Jections of her mother’s description of the early 
affection of her brother, to give her courage to 
persevere in the attempt; and arranged, as well as 
she could, her short story in her mind so as to pro- 
duce the best effect. Her heart beat quickly as she 
approached the door, but sunk, almost to sickening, 
as she lifted the knocker. The recollection, how- 
ever of the duty she had to perform, the hope of 
the benefit which might result to her husband and 
child, and the knowledge that it was her nearest 
relation that she was seeking, gave her courage, 
and the ponderous knocker dropped from her hand 
in one of those equivocal raps, which may be in- 
terpreted either double or single, according to cir- 
cumstances. The door flew open in a second in 
the hands of the fat porter, while three or four 
lacquies were on the alert to escort any “ admitted” 
visiter to the morning saloon. On the appearance, 
however, of one, not on the list, they lounged back 
to their newspapers, or their fireside gossip, which 
the knock at the door for a moment had interrupted. 
The porter’s jolly countenance at once lost its 
g^od-natured expression on the sight of a pelisse 
and bonnet rather faded, and a lady who knocked 
at the door for herself. To her faultering question, 
which she could scarcely breathe audibly from her 
lips, if the object of her visit was within, was re- 
turned a monotonous “not at home,” pronounced 
in a tone which made it appear as though the 
porter uttered it mechanically. 

To those who have made a great exertion to 
bring their mind to solicit an interview of impor- 
tance, and who have looked forward to the result 
of it as forming an epoch in their lives; who have 
accomplished the courage necessary for the opera- 
tion, through many hours of pain and indecision ; 
the mortification arising from this hackneyed re- 
fusal to be seen, will be easily felt; rendered more 
keen too by the notion that one has, of its not being 
true. Mrs. Langley looked wistfully in the face 
of the porter, as she faintly requested to know “ if 
he was sure he was right !” 

“Not at home,” again reiterated the porter, 
Mrs. Langley tottered down the steps, and the door 
closed with a sound that seemed to shut out from 
her heart all future hope; such an effect has even 
trifling circumstances, when the heart has been 
wrought up to a certain pitch of misery and excite- 


52 


THE OXONIANS. 


ment. She felt that the difficulty which this 
^‘Not at home” barrier placed in the way of 
gaining an interview with her uncle, was really as 
formidable as though he had been shut up in some 
impracticable fortress ; and she dreaded that a 
letter could never produce the desired effect. 

Determined, however, to persevere, and to leave 
nothing neglected on her part to redeem the for- 
tunes of her husband ; she set this down merely as 
a single disappointment, and her spirits were reviv- 
ing, when she perceived herself the object of atten- 
tion to a gentleman in a very elegant cabriolet, 
which was proceeding at a pace a very little quicker 
than her own, close to the pavement. 

Blushing at the observation she had attracted, 
she drew her veil close over her face, and turned 
down another street; in the hope of avoiding a 
gaze which, even in the short moment that she had. 
seen it, she could not but perceive was intenly fixed 
upon herself. 

It was in vain, however, that she turned down 
street after street, the eternal cabriolet seemed to be 
everywhere, and to cross her at every moment; nor 
could she fail, now' and then, to meet the glance 
of the driver, who distressed her by the freedom of 
his evident admiration. Perceiving that he was 
determined to follow her, and dreading lest he 
might discover her residence, in attempting to mis- 
lead him she bewildered herself, and, becoming 
confused, she found herself unexpectedly at the 
entrance to the Park, when she imagined herself 
far distant from it. The Park, however, presented 
a refuge from what she‘*now began to deem actual 
persecution, and she entered it at Harrington gate. 
To her surprise, however, the carriage also passed 
into the Park, thus designating the elevated rank 
of the driver. 

As she crossed the avenues, he jumped out of his 
cabriolet and followed her on foot, Twuce he at- 
tempted to address her, and twice was he repressed, 
with a dignity which awed even his assurance into 
respect. A nearer view of the face which had 
attracted him at a distance, and the novelty of the 
intrinsic modesty with which she repelled his at- 
tempt to address her, seemed only to add strength 
to his determination to discover who she was ; but, 
fearing her resolution never to take the direction of 
her own residence while he continued his pursuit, 
he became angry with himself that he had not re- 
linquished the task of the discovery to his servant 
whom he had left in charge of his cabriolet ; and, 
fearing to lose all chance of knowing where his 
incognito lived, he was looking anxiously out for 
some acquaintance, to whom he might depute this 
honorable office. In the meantime, however, he 
did not relax in his endeavors to change her deter- 
mination ; till, roused at last into an exhibition of 
indignation, she exclaimed — “Sir, your persever- 
ance becomes insulting.” 

“ Let that perseverance plead for me,” retorted 
her indefiitigable persecutor. 

Finding all attempts to get rid of his intrusion 
rain, she suddenly stopped, and assuming as much 
dignity as her agitation would permit, she said 
calmly — “ tell me, sir, is there anything in my ap- 
pearance; was there anything in my manners to 
authorize this intrusion ] or to induce you thus to 
follow me, when you perceive your attentions to be 
offensive 1” 


“ So far from it,” replied the unabashed intruder, 
“ it w^as the perfect modesty of your demeanor, 
added to an appearance of grief, which I thouglit 
perhaps I might alleviate, that attracted my no- 
tice.” 

“ You appear sir,” said Mrs. Langley still retain- 
ing hei composure, “to be a gentleman ; and yet 
own, that the very circumstances, which ought to 
have protected me from your addresses, are th© 
very reasons you allege for insulting me. Let thai 
modesty you pretend to admire, sir, be the best 
assurance of the uselessness of solicitation ; and 
let me pass on. I entreat — nay, sir, I insist on 
the free liberty of passing unfollowed and without 
molestation ;” and, seeing him still determined to 
preserve, she added, “ otherwise you will compel 
me to appeal to the first stranger I meet, for pro- 
tection against your insults.” 

Mrs. Langley’s agitation had increased during 
this appeal ; and the last words were uttered in so 
loud a tone of voice, that the words “insults,” and 
“ protection,” awoke Langley from the day-dream 
which he was indulging on one of the benches 
near the spot on which this conversation had taken 
place. 

Too short-sighted to distinguish the parties by 
whom his attention had been attracted, he turned 
towards the spot, exclaiming, “ Eh, who calls for 
protection :” 

Langley was recognized in a moment by both 
parties: and Mrs. Langley dreading a thousand 
disagreeable circumstances in the event of the re- 
cognition being mutual, turned short round, and 
walked sw’iftly away in an opposite direction. 

“Protection! Nonsense! Langley,” exclaimed 
Orville; he it was who had thus persecuted Mrs. 
Langley. “You have spoiled the prettiest tete-a- 
tete in the world, and have actually frightened 
away the prettiest woman I have seen these six 
months. 

“ I spoil a tete-a-tete,” stammered Langley, 
who saw his hopes fading in the idea of offending 
Lord Orville. 

“Yes and the only reparation you can make me, 
is to undo the mischief you have occasioned, by 
following that little woman in the blue pelisse and 
cottage-bonnet, and discovering her residence.” 

“ I — my — Lord ; I am so short-sighted.” 

“ Not a word, or you will miss her — and I would 
not lose her for a thousand. Nay, fly, my dear 
Langley, and when you bring me the intelligence 
of her residence I shall have news for you from his 

Grace of .” And so saying, without waiting 

for a reply. Lord Orville jumped into his cabriolet, 
while Langley, confused, and scarely knowing 
what he was doing, mechanically walked on in the 
direction pointed out by Orville. 

“ What can he take me for,” thought Langley, 
almost aloud, as an indignant feeling at the un- 
worthiness of his employment arose in his mind. 
“ I follow a woman for him ! A good appointment 
may be a very good thing, but I should not enjoy 
the best place in the world if I had to reflect cm 
having to perform one dirty action to procure it.’* 
Such were the reflections which arose in his mind; 
yet still he walked on, in the direction which Mrs. 
Langley had taken, though his infirmity did not 
permit him to distinguish the object of his pursuit. 
He saw he might offend Lord Orville, and crush 


THE OXONIANS. 


53 


the hopes upon which he had been building. He 
did not like thus to kick his basket of eggs into the 
street at once, and mar the fortune he had been en- 
joying in anticipation ; neither did he like the 
positive manner, in which he had been despatched 
on his unworthy errand by Lord Orville, who 
seemed to expect that his patronage was to be pur- 
chased by any services which he might require, 
from those who enjoyed it — Yet how to extricate 
himself from this dilemma? At this moment he 
was joined by Mr. Versatile Tadpole. 

Tadpole was a young man of obscure birth, with 
means sufficient to enable him to live without the 
drudgery of office or business. His sole ambition 
in life was to be thought intimate with persons of 
fashion. He was the veriest lord-hunter in the 
creation; and would do any thing, however mean, 
or contemptible, to curry favor with a Countess, or 
to secure a nod at the Opera from a Peer. By 
these means, he contrived to linger in the outskirts 
of fashionable society; tolerated in some houses 
from the use they made of him, and getting into 
others under the protecting wing of some old col- 
lege acquaintance, or of some man of fashion who 
had condescended to make him his jackal. He 
knew the whole peerage by sight ; could discover 
the coronet on a carriage in the densest fog in No- 
vember; had made himself acquainted with the to- 
pographical situation of every person’s opera box, 
and would have made the best walking court guide 
in the world; since it did not claim acquaintance 
with the inmates, he knew the knocker and brass 
plate on the door of every fashionable mansion in 
town. 

In this pursuit. Tadpole had cut his connexion 
with the class of society in which he was born ; 
without having been able to graft himself upon that 
to which he aspired ; so that he was laughed at by 
the sensible persons of the one, and despised by 
nearly the whole of the other; who seldom conde- 
scended to notice him, unless it was to borrow his 
money, or send him on an errand. Indeed, Tad- 
pole might not unaptly have been designated the 
“ errand-boy” of fashion. He had been uniformly 
blackballed at every club in London in which he 
could prevail upon any proposer and seconder to 
inscribe his name among the candidates ; but yet 
he persisted in his pursuit, and the labor of a whole 
morning’s walk or ride in the Park, was amply re- 
paid by a nod from any one of the heads in the win- 
dow at White’s, or a “ How d’ ye do Tadpole 1” 
from the supercilious voice of some galloping ex- 
quisite in the Park. 

Langley’s loss of fortune had at first lowered him 
considerably in the eyes of Mr. Tadpole ; but, when 
he saw him still on the same familiar terms with 
his former associates, and still read his name in the 
morning papers among the fashionables who at- 
tended such and such an assembly, his whole im- 
portance was restored. 

Langley, who knew Tadpole’s character and fail- 
ings, looked upon the present rencounter as a most 
fortunate circumstance. Here was a way to escape 
from a disagreeable office, and yet run no risk of 
offending his patron. Telling Tadpole, therefore, 
the story — pointing out the obligation Lord Orville 
would be under to him — complaining of his own 
want of vision, as incapacitating himself for perform- 
ing the service ; he secured in a moment a most 

4 


willing proxy ; to whom the idea of obliging a lord 
would have rendered a much more degrading task 
palatable. 

“ But shall I convey the intelligence myself to 
Orville House !” asked Tadpole, eagerly. 

“ Certainly,” replied Langley. 

“ You won’t forestall me ?” 

“ No, no ! but you will certainly miss her,” said 
Langley. 

“ Blue pelise and cottage bonnet, you say ?” 

Yes, yes !” and away flew Tadpole in the di- 
rection Mrs. Langley had taken ; while Langley, 
intending the infirmity of his sight to form an apo- 
logy to Orville; like many others, blinded himself 
into a species of consolation at doing his dirty 
work by deputy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

XOVERS. 

Scarcely any situation can be imagined more 
painful than that of poor Forrester. Loving Emily 
with his whole soul, conscious that none around 
her appreciated her value, nor bore her the same 
degree of real affection as himself, he was yet con- 
demned to see her perpetually subject to the at- 
tention of others, and to follow her from party to 
party, without being able to gain one confidential 
communication. It was in vain that he watched 
for an opportunity; if chance presented one, ha 
was sure to be disappointed by some instrusion 
on the part of one or the other of the Orville 
family. 

He saw too, with fear, the change in her habits 
— mourned over the dissipation of the life she led 
— and dreaded lest the effect of the examples by 
which she was sourrounded should influence her 
future existence. Knowing as he had done, tho 
excellence of her heart and principles, and sen- 
sible of the foundation upon which those prin- 
ciples were built, he felt secure that they could 
never be eradicated. Yet he trembled to think of 
the consequence of such perpetual round of gayety 
upon a heart and mind so young; he dreaded its 
unfitting her for a more domestic life, and that the 
excitement under which she now lived might by 
long continuance become necessary to her exis- 
tence. 

It was impossible, however, for Forrester to go 
on long without perceiving the change in Emily’s 
manner towards himself. At first, he attributed it 
to the natural objection that every woman of de- 
licacy feels towards making the sentiments or at- 
tentions of any man public ; but at length her 
coldness, and the pleasure she seemed to enjoy in 
escaping from his attentions to those of Lord Or- 
ville. or. indeed, to those of any other of the gay 
beings, by whom she was now perpetually sur- 
rounded, almost confirmed his worst fears. Open, 
too, as Orville House was to him at all hours, ho 
began to think it strange, that she herself did no 
make some opportunity for him to see her alone 
and, at length, the unpleasant truth forced itselt 


54 


THE OXONIANS. 


upon his observation, that, on the contrary, she 
herself sedulously avoided any thing like confiden- 
tial communication. The certainty was a sad blow 
to poor Forrester ; it deprived him of his last re- 
maining hope ; he saw all the prospects he had 
formed fade before him; and, what rendered it 
worse, he saw no hope that this destruction of his 
happiness would ensure that of Emily. Such was 
the nature of his love, that, could he have seen 
any reasonable prospect of her happiness being in- 
creased by the change, he would have tried to sup- 
port his disappointment with fortitude. As it was, 
he gave himself up to despair, on her account as 
well as his own, ' 

Once admitting the idea of a change in her sen- 
timents, it was astonishing how many proofs of 
the truth of this surmise forced themselves upon 
his mind. Doubt soon grew into certainly, and 
he determined to seek an interview; throw’ all 
upon the hazard of a last appeal ; and, if success- 
ful, caution her against the insidious arts of Orville, 
and bid her farewell forever. 

An opportunity for this appeal at length pre- 
sented itself, when it was least expected. Enter- 
ing the library at Orville House, he perceived Emi- 
ly alone, evidently in deep thought. Once or twice 
she appeared agitated by some internal emotion: 
then, sighing, she exclaimed unconsciously, “ I 
almost wish I were back again in the country V’ 
forgetting every thing but the impulse of the mo- 
ment. Forrester approached her hastily, and asked, 
“ Can such a wish emanate from Miss Emily’s 
heart 

Emily started at the sight of him; looked as 
though she wished to escape ; but, perceiving no 
hope of avoiding the interview, she merely exclaim- 
ed, “ Bless me, Mr. Forrester!'’ 

A/r. Forrester! You were not wont to be so 
formal ! it used to be Forrester — or Edward.” 

“ Yes !” replied Emily. “ I remember, Mr. For- 
rester, to have been sufficiently rude to have used 
your name too familiarly.” 

“Nay,” said Forrester, mournfully, “Miss Hart- 
ley never could be rude ; and the delicacies of her 
familiarity rendered its favor so great, that I must 
ever regret its loss.” 

“ Mr. Forrester chooses to be complimentary,” 
said Emily, rather satirically, and taking up the 
tone ill which she had latterly often spoken of For- 
rester. 

“ It is unfortunately not in my power to be so,” 
quietly replied Forrester: “and I remember the 
time, when sincerity possessed a greater influence 
than compliments, over your heart. I have long 
sought this opportunity of speaking with you alone : 
but, of late, you have been so surrounded by an ido- 
lizing multitude, that there has not been a moment 
to spare to him, who was once happy enough to 
consider his society as one of the pleasures of your 
former life.” 

“ Why, I begin to find,” said Emily, “ that my 
former life, as you call it, w as no life at all — that ft 
was a mere dream.” 

“ It is button true,” replied Forrester, “and I am 
at length awakened to the dreadful certainty that 
it was indeed some illusion of the brain.” 

“ You are quite metaphorical, Mr. Forrester,” 
coldly observed Emily, who assumed an indiffer- 
ence she was far from feeling, hoping that it might 


the sooner end an interview which was painful to 
both. 

“ Oh, Emily, Emily !” exclaimed Forrester, “ this 
coldness, this indinerence destroys me. But I come 
not to complain — I know my doom — yet hear me-- 
hear me, Emily, if it be only for the last time.” 

“ I am all attention, Mr. Forrester.” 

“Alas! Miss Hartley — I had much — much to 
say : and thought that I had summoned sufficient 
courage, as well as sufficiently tranquillized my 
feelings, to have given utterance to my sentiments, 
without discovering the bursting agonies of a dis- 
appointed heart.” 

“Agonies!” exclaimed Emily. “The prudent 
Mr. Forrester talk of agonies'*” 

“ Ay, and feel them too — more, perhaps, than 
those w'ho make a superior display of their senti- 
ments,” replied Forrester ; “ but no matter — lam 
but too sensible of the difference you must find in 
my plain, and perhaps homely expressions of afiec- 
tion, when compared with the elegance of those 
compliments which are now crowding daily upon 
your ear. I perceive, too, how my plain manners 
must sink in your estimation, when put in compe- 
tition with those of a fashionable man — I feel all 
this — deeply, severely feel it — and deeply do I re- 
gret the folly that led me to hope so humiile a being 
as myself could ever retain an interest in the heart 
of one so capable of attracting to her feet even the 
most brilliant competitors.” 

Emily felt more than she dared to acknowledge, 
even to herself; and in a softened tone, replied, 
“Indeed, Mr. Forrester, these circumstances exist 
only in your own imagination.” 

“No, no,” said Forrester, mournfully; “they 
exist in sad reality. I am quite aware of it— I feel 
my inferiority — I cannot dress up my sentiments 
in that glowdng language which gives plausibility 
to sophistry, and which would render truth irre- 
sistible.” 

“ Nay, nay,” said Emily, in a still softer voice; 
“ such virtues and good sense as Mr. Forrester 
possesses, will always ensure the esteem they 
merit, would he but exert them in a direction 
where they could be properly appreciated.” 

“ There is but one direction, Miss Hartley,” 
replied Forrester, “ in which I ever wished the 
few qualifications I possess, to gain an ascen- 
dancy — but one object in the world, to which 
I can sincerely and truly devote them. That 
object is lost to me ; and all my hopes of happiness 
are blasted for ever.” 

“ Nay, nay, Mr. Forrester,” exclaimed Emily, 
in a tone almost of tenderness. 

“Hold!” interrupted Forrester; “revive not the 
glimpse of a hope, which I know must be imme- 
diately extinguished. I see it in your altered man- 
ners — I read it in your frigid look — I understand 
and feel it, from a thousand circumstances that 
speak the truth of my surmises. Oh, Emily ! 
when memory paints thee as thou once wert — 
kind — obliging — may I say affectionate 1 — When 
imagination pictures the smile with which you 
greeted me in the morning; the gentle sigh which 
the evening witnessed at our parting — when I 
retrace the circumstances of that evening, when I 
first dared to whisper in your ear a feeling warmer 
than that of fraternal love — it is then, Emily, that 
in these retrospections, I experienced sensations 


THE OXONIANS. 


55 


nearly allied to phrensy — ” and Forrester, betrayed 
by his feelings out of his usually calm exterior, 
actually sobbed with agony. 

Emily, overcome by her own feelings, and giving 
way to a momentary burst of tenderness, exclaimed, 
“Oh Edward! dear Edward! spare me! spare 
me ! — 

“‘Edward! dear Edward!’’’ repealed For- 
rester, with delight ; “ and do I hear that name 
again from the lips of Emily ? Oh repeat it, and 
I am your slave for ever.” 

“ Oh Edward ! — I know — I feel — I am wrong,” 
said Emily. 

“ Wrong ! — impossible. Nothing can be wrong 
when Emily’s heart and understanding direct her 
actions.” 

“ Pardon me the torture I have given to a sen- 
sible heart — a heart of which I feel myself un- 
worthy ; and the happiness of which I can never — ” 

“What do I hear] what says my Emily]” 
ej?claimed Forrester. 

“ In the country,” pursued Emily, “ my natural 
disposition was repressed. The world — unhappily 
for me — has shown me what I am — our disposi- 
tions, Forrester, are dissimilar.” 

“No, no,” interrupted Forrester. “In the 
country, my Emily was herself: here only, is she 
the creature of circumstance. Can you remember, 
in anticipating our future lives, how exactly our 
sentiments accorded ? Do you remember in our 
studies, how perfectly our opinions coincided ! 
(’an you recollect our evening walks and conversa- 
tions, and say that our hearts are dissimilar] 
True, I cannot display a blaze of wit that excites 
the admiration of my auditors — I have no personal 
accomplishments to dazzle the beholders, and make 
my wife the envy of her neighbors — I cannot dress 
up my atfection in the fastidious tefm of modern 
sentiment; but I can proffer you the unalterable 
love of a manly heart, that will devote itself to your 
happiness; and, that happiness accomplished, will 
be the greatest I can possess.” 

During this passionate appeal, rendered more 
forcible by the general quietude of the character of 
him by whom it was made, Emily had been sur- 
prised by the return of so much of her former ten- 
derness for Forrester. Her heart seemed to have 
wandered back into the track it had so grievously 
deserted. Former scenes rushed upon her remem- 
brance ; former feelings forced themselves upon 
her mind ; and, in a voice, in which she seemed to 
resign herself to their influence, she exclaimed : — 

-■* Oh, Forrestci, I Rnow the goodness of your 
heart ; I feel the strength of its affection ; I remem- 
ber well our early life, and remember it with re- 
gret, even amid — ” Emily was gradually giving 
way to her feelings. Forrester seemed to hang 
upon every word she uttered ; her former affectiotis 
and sentiments were evidently returning with their 
full force, and the countenance of Forrester was 
once more glowing with hope : — when Lord Orville 
suddenly entered the apartment, and started with 
surprise at seeing Emily and Forrester together. 
The moment Emily saw him, she became confused, 
she repeated the words “ even amid, even amid,” 
once or twice, and then, shrinking from Orville’s 
glance, she finished by saying, “Ah, you here, my 
Lord]” 

Forrester started, for so intent was he on Emily’s 


words, that he had not perceived Orville’s entrance. 
His countenance assumed its former expression of 
despair, and he internally exclaimed, “ He here ! 
then I am lost.” 

“ You seem surprised at my presence, Miss 
Hartley,” said Lord Orville, advancing towards 
them. “ But, can you wonder, that the attraction 
which is sufficiently powerful to influence the grave, 
the wise, the prudent Edward Forrester, should 
draw within its vortex, the weak and volatile, 
though devoted Orville.” 

“You honor me too much,” replied Forrester, 
endeavoring to regain some degree of composure, 
“ by including one of such humble pretensions, 
with an individual, whose sphere of attraction is so 
extended as your Lordship’s.” 

“ Why, Miss Hartley,” exclaimed Lord Orville, 
in a tone of affected surprise, “ with what wand 
have you touched Forrester] I protest, Chester- 
field himself could never have dressed up a com- 
pliment in better style; and, as we generally value 
these things by their scarcity, more than for their 
intrinsic worth, why, I think 1 must inscribe a com- 
pliment from Forrester as a rarity in my common- 
place book.” 

“ I believe, my Lord,” said Emily, trying to rally 
herself, and to appear unconcerned, “ that compli- 
ments in general deserve a commonplace recep- 
tion.” 

Forrester had in vain struggled to resume his 
composure, and finding it utterly impossible to re- 
duce the tone of his feelings so suddenly, he hastily 
took his leave ; though not without betraying his 
agitation, and almost rushing out of the room. 
Emil}" herself could not quite conquer her feelings, 
though afraid of betraying them before Lord Orville, 
whose eye was fixed upon her varying counte- 
nance. 

“ You seem agitated. Miss Hartley,” observed 
he; then, in a bantering tone, he proceeded: 
“ What, I dare swear, Forrester has been recalling 
to your memory those halcyon days, when, like 
shepherds and shepherdesses of Arcadia, you wan- 
dered through dasied meadows and shady groves. 
I can easily imagine Forrester to play a sighing 
shepherd remarkably well, and to prove an excel- 
lent lover, for the country. I can readily believe 
now, that every tree in the neighborhood has bled 
with the characters of your name, which has regu- 
larly undergone a “ course of bark,” as Hood pun- 
ningly calls it. I suppose the echoes have forgotten 
to respond to any other name but that of Emily ; 
and that the murmuring streams have rolled their 
limpid waves but as an accompaniment to sapphic 
lays, chaunted in a voice, so musical and melan- 
choly, that nightingales have left their native groves, 
and joined chorus.” 

“ A truce, a truce, my Lord,” said Emily, with 
a languid smile; while she inwardly shrunk from 
Orville’s badinage; — who at once relinquishing his 
lighter tones, continued more earnestly : — 

“ And was such a mind and form as Miss Hart- 
ley’s created only to be seen and enjoyed by rustics 
and nightingales] Was she blest with talents, 
that make her the delight of the gayest circles, only 
to display them where they can never be properly 
appreciated] or was the poignancy of her wit, 
given her but to satirise a few dowdy country 
neighbors ; and fill up the scandalous chronicle of 


56 


THE OXONIANS. 


ji country tea-table? No, no, I will not do the 
world so much injustice as to place so fair a flower 
among those, which were born 

‘ To blush unseen. 

And waste their sweetness on the desert air.’ ” 

“ Oh, my Lord, you overpower me,” exclaimed 
Emily, “ indeed you do. The country, I feel, was 
my proper sphere. I possess none of those elegant 
arts of society.” 

“ Where nature has done so much,” interrupted • 
Lord Orville, “ art is but an intruder, a little light 
reading under my direction, will soon brush off the 
prejudices of your country preceptress ; who, unused 
to the world, is insensible to the burden which such 
sentiments are in society.” 

“ Yes, my Lord, but these sentiments are for the 
well-being of society,” said Emily. 

“ So, those who are prejudiced by them will tell 
you,” replied Lord Orville. “ So, the ill-natured 
cvTiic lays down the law ; while the cold philosopher, 
devoid of passion and sensibility himself, preaches 
from the narrow precincts of his tub against their 
indulgence in others, with the calmness of a stoic; 
and calculates upon success, as a cabinet minister 
at home reckons upon an easy victory abroad ; 
because he does not see the dangers and difficulties 
of the battle. The gods gave us our passions; 
men have had the presumption to impose customs 
which would violate the first principles of our nature. 
Which ought we to obey ? Here,” continued he, 
taking up an open volume, “ see what Pope says 
on the master passion of our natures ; — 

‘ Love, free as air, at sight of human ties 
Spreads her light wings ’ ” 

Oh, my Lord, forbear your arguments, lest you 
should dazzle me by their brilliancy, into a prema- 
ture belief of their truth.” 

Lord Orville saw the power he possessed, at 
least over her imagination, if he had yet attained 
none over her heart or judgment; and, uncertain 
yet in his own mind, as to his intentions, he pur- 
sued his advantage recklessly, without giving it a 
thought, that if he ultimately fell into the plans of 
his mother, he was undermining the principles of 
his future wife. Orville, however, derived a pleasure 
in overturning established opinions, and in the sub- 
version of received rule.s, even when he had no end 
to accomplish. There was a kind of recklessness 
in his philosophy, and of carelessness, with which 
he threw his powers of ridicule, even into the 
most sacred subjects, that delighted him, because it 
astonished others ; and, with regard to women, he 
derived a selfish pleasure from winning affections 
which he had no intention of returning, and by 
which he had no hope of profiling. He could not, ' 
however, behold one so lovely and innocent as the 
girl who stood before him, without feeling some- 
thing more than he had for most women ; and 
ideas, beyond mere words, for a moment crossed 
his mind as he pursued his theme. 

“Nay, Miss Hartley, I wish to owe your con- 
version to our modern tenets to conviction alone, 
and, where can you find greater conviction, than 
in your own feelings. Suppose that you, all trem- 
bling sensibility as you are, should find a congenial 
soul ; and, that soul, inspired by affection, by pas- 
sion, should pour forth its raptures at your feet; 


should seize your trembling hand thus, and lay it 
to a heart whose pulsations beat for you alone”— 
and here, having taken Emily by the hand, he 
appeared to be the impassioned lover he repre- 
sented, when the door was suddenly opened, and, 
before either of them were aware of his presence, 
the Admiral stood before them. 

Emily started, blushed, and was almost overcome 
by her emotion. 

The Admiral was as much startled as herself; 
and exclaiming, “ Avast there,” and, stuttering out 
an excuse about sorrow and interruption, was 
retiring, when Lord Orville opening his box, coolly 
said : 

“Oh! not at all, Admiral; I was only giving 
Miss Hartley some idea of natural philosophy.” 

“ Experimental philosophy, you mean,” said the 
Admiral, chuckling at his own joke, and then, 
recollecting his information, that an attachment 
existed between Emily and Forrester, he executed 
a loud whistle, and continued: “ But, Miss Emily, 
since the wind lays in this quarter — ” 

“For heaven’s sake, sir,” interrupted Emily, 
almost overcome by her agitation. But the Ad- 
miral was on his usual tack of sincerity, and was 
not to be stopped ; and continued : 

“ No, no, we must not have Forrester deceived 
any longer. He is a worthy fellow ; though he is, 
perhaps, a little too moral and sentimental.” 

Emily was overcome with confusion at this plain 
sailing speech of the Admiral ; and was attempting 
some stammering explanation, when Mr. Tadpole 
was announced : who, scarcely noticing Emily or 
the Admiral, in his haste to please Lord Orville, 
drew him aside, and in a half whisper, said, 

“ Well, my lord, I followed her home.” Lord 
Orville looked surprised. 

“ Oh, Langley, you know, told me — blue pelisse, 
cottage bonnet — ” and shaking his head signifi- 
cantly, he proceeded : “ no fear from me. It was 
in vain she twitched round the corners, and bobbed 
up the alleys — determined to oblige your lordship, 
I traced her to a house in—” here his whispering 
became very low; “and, as I came away, who 
should I see enter, but Forrester — there’s a sly dog 
for you !” 

Lord Orville now comprehended, that Mr. Tad- 
pole had performed the office which he had re- 
quired at the hands of Langley ; though how he 
became so commissioned, he was at a loss to con- 
ceive ; but was delighted, by any means, to learn 
intelligence of his incognita. 

Emily, who could not help hearing some part 
of what Mr. Tadpole said, started with a feeling 
almost akin to jealousy, as, from the little she 
gathered, she found the communication related to 
some female; and she inwardly asked herself, 
“ Can he deceive me ?” 

The Admiral, who did not at all like the un 
ceremonious manner in which he had been treated 
by the intruder; and catching, here and there, a 
word or two of the communication, without hear- 
ing the truth sharply exclaimed : 

“Eh, what’s that about twitching and bobbing, 
and Forrester ?” 

“ Oh, nothing. Admiral,” coolly answered Lord 
Orville ; “ but that Tadpole was telling me that 
Forrester — didn’t you say Forrester — ? ” 

“ Oh yes, Forrester,” replied the civil Mr. Tad- 


THE OXONIANS. 


57 


polei delighted at the familiar manner in which 
Lord Orville had mentioned his name, — 

“ That Forrester desired him to follow some 
pretty woman home.” 

“Eh; how, my Lordl” exclaimed Tadpole: 
but was immediately silenced by a look from Or- 
ville, who proceeded : 

“ And he left Forrester there just now : was not 
tha.t it, Tadpole 1” 

*Oh yes; just so; exactly so; just as your 
Lordship says; your Lordship is always in the 
right;” hastily said Tadpole, without knowing what 
he was asserting, only that he was agreeing with 
with a Lord. 

“ What exclaimed the Admiral, “ Forrester, a 
gay deceiver 1 the specious fellow — the demure 
scoundrel ; he, of all people, to be running riot !” 

Emily had a mixed feeling at intelligence so 
unexpected ; at this instant it would have pained 
her more to have discovered that Orville had de- 
ceived her, than to think that Forrester had been 
guilty of any dereliction ; and, almost wanting an 
excuse for her own versatility, she experienced 
something like a pleasure in finding that apology 
for her own conduct in Forrester’s change, which 
would have been denied her by his constancy. 
Happy, at any rate, to escape from the observation 
of the Admiral, she quitted the room, and hurried 
away to Clara, for the purpose of using this apo- 
logy for the variation in her opinions with regard 
to Edward Forrester. 

“ D — n the fellow ! One may swear at decep- 
tion,” said the Admiral. Then approaching Lord 
Orville, “ My boy, give me your hand, for I love 
an open-hearted rake, as much as I despise a hy- 
pocritical libertine.” 

“ Ay, Admiral,” replied Orville, “ you see it is 
not always the moral outside that hides the best 
heart.” 

“ But ril be about his ears — I wont let the son 
of my old friend turn out a scoundrel without tel- 
ling him of it.” And away bounced the Admiral 
in search of Forrester. 

Mr. Tadpole, who had stood silent during the 
latter part of this scene, taken quite by surprise, 
looked at Orville for an explanation. 

“ Nothing but a hoax. Tadpole, a mere hoax, a 
joke upon Forrester’s morality,” said Orville. “But 
come, my dear fellow, we will take a stroll, and 
you shall tell me all the particulars.” And away 
they went, the civil Mr. Tadpole well rewarded 
for the dirtiest action of which a man can be guilty, 
by walking down St. James’s Street, arm in arm, 
with a peer. 




CHAPTER XX. 


-T 

We must not, however, in our history of Emily 
and her suitors, forget the humble Caroline and 
her lover ; for milliners have hearts as well as their 
betters, and they break sometimes. Caroline’s 
story forms only an episode in our general history; 


and, perhaps some of my readers will recollect, that 
it is not the first time a pretty milliner has formed 
an episode in a man’s life. “ Where there is a 
will there is a way,” is one of those proverbs, that, 
like most of the old adages, is a true one; and, 
however wayward the will may be, there are gen- 
erally means, if industriously sought, sufficient to 
gratify it. Caroline Dormer had felt too much de- 
light in the renewal of her intercourse with Hart- 
ley, to give up the continuance of it; and she was 
not long, therefore, before she found a person to 
whom she confided her secret, and who agreed to 
accomp^n}” her in her future interviews. This was 
the daughter of the humble and distant relative, 
who had received her on her arrival in town ; and 
who had procured for her the situation in which 
Hartley had discovered her. The confidante was 
several years older than herself; and this was some 
salvo to the conscience of Caroline, and, in her 
eyes, made her presence, a more proper sanction for 
her meetings with Hartley, than if she had merely 
been of her own age. Fanny Thompson, however, 
though older, had not bought prudence, either witli 
her years, or her experience ; and could not but 
wonder at the folly of Caroline, in wishing her in- 
terviews with her lover thus to be intruded upon 
by a third person, who, according to her notions (I 
must not dignify them by the title of ideas) must 
spoil all the pleasure of the meeting. At any rate, 
this would have been her opinion of any third per- 
son who had been present at such interviews, when 
she too had lovers. At first, therefore, she attempt- 
ed to argue Caroline out of the intention of being 
always accompanied, and to persuade her that it 
was but quite “ right, natural, and proper,” to use 
her own words, “ to give the gentleman the meet- 
ing by herself.” When, however, she found that, 
by accompanying her friend, she received sundry 
valuable presents, and became the partaker of many 
pleasures, of the enjoyment of which, she had no 
chance by any other means, she soon become con- 
tent with the role of confidante, and contrived eve- 
ry means in her power to be as little “ de trop” as 
possible. 

Intimation that the “convenient friend” was 
found, was soon, therefore, conveyed to Hartley, who 
was not long in availing himself of the opportuni- 
ties which this afforded him of seeing Caroline. 
From the moment he had discovered her, his heart 
had revolted at the idea of her menial situation, for 
in no other light could he consider it. He could 
not bear the idea of the woman he loved, working 
for her daily bread ; and he used every argument 
in his power to induce her to quit it, and to accept 
the means of existence from himself, until some 
change, that might place them in a different 
position with regard to each other, should take 
place. 

To this proposal, however, Coroline would not 
listen for a moment : circumstances, he had can- 
didly told 'her, prevented his yet daring to propose 
their marriage to his family ; and, till such a cer- 
tainty as that occurred she determined to accept no- 
thing from him, and prided herself on her humble 
independence. Not even a present beyond a plain 
locket with his bair, could he prevail upon her to 
accept, nor would .she permit him to do any thing 
that could add to the comfort, or ameliorate the dis- 
agreeableness of her situation. 


58 


THE OXONIANS. 


The circumstances to which Hartley alluded, 
were, in fact, preci.sely the same as they were when 
they last parted ; but the additional knowledge of 
the world, which he had acquired since his entrance 
into life, and in the various scenes through which 
he had passed in his short career, had made the pos- 
sibility of their marriage very debatable ground in 
his own mind. He had lived with a set of young 
men, who treated the marriage tie as a jest ; to 
whom many a husband was only an object of pity 
or of ridicule; and who only looked upon matrimo- 
ny as a method of extending their connexion, pow- 
er, or fortune. - 

Nothing unhinges the morals of a young and 
inexperienced heart so much as this light conver- 
sation on serious subjects. Nothing loosens the 
influence of morality and religion in a mind, un- 
used to think for itself, and to draw and act upon 
its own conclusions, more, than to hear sacred sub- 
jects treated jestingly and with levity. 

The mind is shocked by open blasphemy, and 
shrinks from broad indelicacy ; but the perpetual 
light shafts that are launched against serious sub- 
jects and institutions, in the common intercourse 
of conversation, soon undermine the respect which 
those feel for them, whose reverence is not found- 
ed on something stronger than that of mere habit 
or imitation. 

Mortified as Hartley was at this determination 
of Caroline to owe him nothing but the pleasure 
derived from his society, it yet, almost unknown to 
himself, raised her in his estimation. 

“ 'I’he presents were therefore all transferred to 
Miss Fanny Thompson the confidante, who treat- 
ed them, as Fatima’s father does the camels in 
Colman’s drama of Blue Beard, and seemed “to 
whip them in with their own tails,” by the readi- 
ness with which she accepted them. 

Caroline’s hours of business — do not let polite 
ears be shocked, that one of our heroines is obliged 
to number such hours — occupied her from eight 
in the morning till eight in the evening, and those 
regulations which ordained this as the time to be 
devoted to labor, as well as the time at which she 
was expected to rejoin her comjianions at home, 
were both rigidly adhered to by Caroline, in spite 
of all the remonstrances, and sometimes anger of 
Hartley. 

Her labor, however, now no longer hung heavy 
on her hands; she had recollections and anticipa- 
tions to lighten their burden ; her life was a life of 
hope again, and she counted the tedious hours as 
they passed ; she had something to look forward to 
at the end of them, which promised her pleasure 
— and what a pleasure too ! the society of the 
man she loved. Those women who have loved 
truly, will well know how much of pain such a 
pleasure will repay ; and Hartley’s passions, if not 
his affections, were sufficiently engaged, scarcely 
to let an evening elapse that he did not pass in the 
/ society of Caroline from eight till eleven. She was 
devotedly fond of music, he was careful, therefore, 
to secure a secluded box 'in one of the higher tiers 
for every opera night, where he was delighted at 
the pleasure she experienced, and surprised at the 
superior knowledge of the science which she 
evinced. On the.se nights the confidante whom he 
had supplied with a capital glass by Holland, for 
that purpose, amused herself by admiring the dres- 


ses in the boxes, and counting the bald heads in 
the pit: and though she was insensible to the 
music of Mozart or Ro.ssiiii, she was by no means 
indifferent to the dancing, which excited in her 
various inclinations to giggle, and exclamations of 
“ Oh, my !” at the tremendous expose of limbs in 
“ Pirouettes renverseesP 8he was, however, per- 
petually interrupting the tete-a-tete of the lovers, 
by inquiries as to who were the different occupiers 
of the boxes ; a curiosity which Hartley was per- 
fectly capable of gratifying, from his extensive in- 
tercourse in fashionable society. Fanny Thomp- 
son at length, however, became tired of the opera. 
It was a mighty dull piece of business; nothing 
but a parcel of music which gave her no pleasure, 
and all in a language which she did not under- 
stand ; she therefore, at length, generally sought 
a refuge from ennui in sleep ; a circumstance, upon 
which Hartley congratulated himself aloud; and 
which, we must own, did not create any thing like 
sorrow in Caroline. 

On other evenings, when some performance at 
the English theatres promised greater entertainment 
than usual, a private box was provided ; and hero 
the confidante was much more at home. She would 
weep with Juliet or Belvidera, and laugh with Lis- 
ton or Harley ; enter into the drollery and pathos 
of Mathews, whose delineations of human nature 
come home to every man’s bosom, and enjoj^the 
vivacity of Yates; and drew comparisons between 
Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and the King’s 
Theatre, not at all to the advantage of the latter. 
On fine nights, when the moon was bright and the 
air not too cold, the carriage would drive them to 
the gate of Hyde-park, or a mile or two into the 
country ; where the few hours of Caroline’s liberty 
were spent in walking with her lover by moonlight, 
and in the interchange of sentiments, which on 
these occasions was more delightful, and frequently 
more dangerous than in the midst of a crowded 
theatre, with other objects to distract her attention. 
Sometimes, but very seldom, and not till her confi- 
dence in Hartley had been fully established ; would 
she accompany Fanny to his rooms in the Albany, 
where a petit souper (^his dinner) was provided in 
the library ; and here, perhaps, that domestic inter- 
course which was the consequence of evenings spent 
thus, tended, as much as anything, to rivet her affec- 
tions still more closely. On these occasions, the 
hours were passed in conversations and reading; 
and by this interchange of their opinions, they 
thought they discovered a similarity of sentiment 
and feeling, which fitted them for each other. I say, 
thought ; because when persons have an inclination 
for each other, they are too apt to imagine a con- 
geniality, which in after times, they are surprised to 
find never existed in reality. Few people deceive 
themselves or others so much as lovers do. Think- 
ing and wishing alike in one great point, they are 
too apt to take it for granted that their thoughts 
and wishes are the same upon all others ; and the 
desire to please, while they are lovers, not oply 
helps the deception, but frequently induces the adop- 
tion of each other’s opinions as their own. 

It was in these visits, that Caroline frequently 
surprised Hartley by the powers of her conversa- 
tions, and by the extent of her acquirements, as 
well as pleased him by her proficiency at the piano. 
She might not execute with the precision of an ex- 


THE OXONIANS. 


59 


pert player, or of one of those amateurs who fall 
a little short of the excellence of professors ; but 
she played with a feeling which proved how much 
of her soul was in the occupation ; and sang the 
plaintive ballads with which our native music 
abounds, in a style calculated to produce an effect, 
with which Miss Stevens herself might have been 
gratified. Her reading had been desultory, and the 
rudiments of that education instilled by her mother 
had not been regularly acted upon after that lady’s 
decease. Historical reading had been mixed with 
romance ; didactic studies had been mingled with 
poetry, and natural inclination leading her much 
more into the world of fiction, than the dry paths 
of dull truth, Caroline had formed her -ideas of life 
more from romance than reality. Her father, whose 
sole ideas of education were hounded, like a true 
sld Oxonian, by the classics, had indulged his own 
inclinations by giving her an insight into the litera- 
ture of the ancients ; so that, perhaps, though infe- 
rior to other women in some points, she was their 
superior in those which do not generally form por- 
tions of female acquirement. This kind of mixed 
education, and living much with her father, who 
was a man of profound erudition, had given her a 
strength of mind beyond her years; but the indul- 
gence of her poetical inclinations had added to the 
tenderness of her disposition, and created a heart 
peculiarly formed to love, and to love devotedly. 

These evenings were perhaps among the most 
pleasant, not only* of those which Hartley passed 
with Caroline, but of those which he passed any 
where. It is true that eleven o’clock was too early 
an hour for such interviews to interfere materially 
with his engagements; but he always found the 
most splendid party insipid after quitting Caroline, 
whom he generally set down with her friend, in his 
way to his routs or quadrilles. 

Their evening interviews were of course limited 
to the usual three hours; but on Sundays they 
spent the whole day together. On these mornings 
a carriage generally waited to receive Caroline and 
her friend in St. James’s square, in which Hartley 
accompanied them to some one of those many 
pleasant places within a drive from the metropolis; 
always taking care to choose those, where they 
were not likely to encounter the pleasure-seeking 
cocknies. Here they enjoyed each other’s society, 
admired the beauties of nature ; and the only alloy 
to the pleasures of the day was the anticipation of 
parting in the evening. It was on these days that 
Caroline sometimes gave herself up to the full de- 
light of her enjoyment of her lover’s society ; here 
she reposed in full security upon his arm, listened 
to his conversation, and, if her lips did not utter 
the fulness of her love, Hartley delighted to read 
it in her looks. 

There were but two drawbacks upon the pleasures 
Hartley experienced in these interviews ; the one 
arising from the uncertainty of his own meaning, 
motives, and intentions ; and the other, from the 
interrupting presence of the eternal Fanny Thomp- 
son. She seemed to sit with her quiet face, like 
an incubus upon his pleasures; and it required all 
his innate politeness, and all his consideration for 
Caroline, to treat her with the civility which always 
characterized his behavior to her ; for he was civil 
to her even at the moment he could have thrown 
her out of the opera box into the pit, or out of the 


windows of his chambers into the area, for the 
purpose of getting a few moments with Caroline 
alone. Yet, the poor woman did her best to make 
herself agreeable ; she slept over a book in the 
Albany ; shut her eyes, if she did not sleep, in the 
corner of the carriage, and kept her attention per- 
petually fixed on the stage at the theatre ; still, 
there she was, and Monsieur Tonson was never a 
greater plague to the poor Frenchman in the Seven 
Dials, than his female namesake was to Hartley. 
It was in vain that he pleaded for her absence ; in 
spite of the perfect confidence which she placed in 
the honor of her lover, Caroline was determined 
upon this point ; it was the salvo to her conscience ; 
the appui upon which she supported the apology 
for her interviews ; and she would not give way to 
him in this instanee. 

It is almost impossible to describe how much 
these repeated meetings increased the love of Caro- 
line for Hartley. His undiminished and perpetual 
attentions; the delicacy with which he sought to 
give her pleasure, the respect which he paid to her 
person; and the superior conversation, and the in- 
tellectual delight which she enjoyed in her inter- 
views with him ; all tended to render her heart 
more devoted than ever, to the only man in whose 
favor it had experienced a feeling. 

The contrast of these hours with those spent in 
her uninteresting labors, increased their effect upon 
her imagination; and although their enjoyment did 
not diminish her industry, they certainly sometimes 
rendered the time devoted to her daily occupations, 
a little more tedious. 

This « between the virtue of a milliner, 

and the temptations which a gentleman has it in 
his power to offer her, we have always considered 
but a tery unfair contest. It is a hawk pursuing 
a butterfly. A woman, with Irnt little educaffon, 
and condemned by the poverty of the situation in 
which she is born, to earn her bread by a laborious 
employment, unfortunately attracts by her beauty 
the attention of some sensualist of fashion. His 
rank in life, in his own opinion, gives him a right 
to make any attempt he pleases ; and he is gene- 
rally secure from the resentment of brothers and 
cousins, even should he excite that of the object of 
his pursuit. Let us imagine, however, what is 
very natural, and perhaps too generally the case ; 
that the attentions of one superior rank are not 
disagreeable ; and that a person in this situation is 
imprudent enough to permit their being paid ; and, 
in time, to grant interviews, solicited under im- 
pressions of the heartlessness of which the poor 
girl is not aware. 

Pleasures are procured for her, of the existence 
of which she was till this time ignorant ; presents 
are made; and enjoyments offered, of a nature 
that her own situation in life must have for ever 
precluded ; her leisure moments are spent in 
drives, theatres, and various pursuits, which disgust 
her with ordinary occupations; and in society 
which makes her look with contempt upon the 
every-day companions of her labor. Her ideas 
rise above her circumstances; no time is left for 
reflection ; every thing that can gratify the senses, 
or accelerate the pleasures of the passing moment, 
are presented to her inexperience; and she falls a 
prey to the designing sensualist who has marked 
her for his own, and hunted her over paths 


60 


THE OXONIANS. 


flowers till his succeeding indifference withers them 
up, and leaves his victim nothing before her, but to 
retrace her steps through pain, humiliation, and 
repentance ; or to pursue a career which must 
ultimately end in destruction. 

It is suprising, what pains are taken by a certain 
set of men in the seduction of women of this class 
of society. During the pursuit nothing is spared ; 
splendid promises arc made, and believed ; money 
is lavished in presents ; like a victim destined to be 
immolated on the altar, every wish, however capri- 
cious, is gratified. But these efforts once crowned 
with success, how the scene changes ! There is 
such a run at the Opera that there is no box to be 
procured — carriage horses are lame, or the cab 
under repair — a family is come to town, and a 
father may be offended at his absence — young 
men become suddenly filial who never thought of 
their parents before in their lives. In short, there 
is never wanting an excuse to avoid the perform- 
ance of those promises which had misled ; or to 
realize the anticipations, which had misguided the 
unfortunate girl. If she have a virtuous mind, 
and a sensitive heart, the disappointment ruins her 
health and spirits ; and bitterness and remorse are 
her portion. If, on the contrary, all virtuous dis- 
positions have been eradicated, and it has been 
her vanity and levity, rather than her affections, 
by which she has been deluded, she vents her 
spleen in reproaches, and pursues the same course 
with others. 

Look into the lives of nine-tenths of those unfor- 
tunates who form decidedly the most pitiable class 
of society in the world ; and you may trace a his- 
tory similar to that which we have attempted 
above. 

Caroline Dormer was, however, superior .^o any 
such temptations as these ; and Hartley certainly 
was not guilty in his intentions towards her. They 
both felt the delight of being together, and Caroline 
derived her ideas of security, or rather never thought 
herself in danger, from the perfect confidence she 
placed in her lover. There was one thing neither 
of them ventured; they never anticipated; they 
reversed the Scripture phrase, and seemed to thing 
that “sufficient for the day was the good thereof.” 
In this instance, at any rate, they thought with Se- 
neca that it was wise “ to enjoy the present without 
anxious dependence for the future.” 

Hartley never thought of the future at all ; or, 
if he did, was totally unconscious of what it might 
produce ; and, when it would force itself upon Ca- 
roline’s mind, it was always sweetened by some ro- 
mantic hope, that circumstances would at length 
favor their union. 

In the mean time, their meetings became still more 
frequent. No opportunity of seeing each other was 
lost; till poor Fanny Thompson began herselfto be al- 
most tired of her part : and proffered a silent wish, that 
Mr. Hartley had some kind friend, who would take 
upon himself to relieve her from the tedium of the 
many hours she was compelled to pass with the 
lovers. Sometimes, the total neglect of the Sabbath 
duties, which this kind of life induced, gave a pang 
of momentary repentance to Caroline, as she recol- 
lected how differently that day was wont to be 
passed ; but this was banished, the moment she saw 
Hartley’s beaming eye and happy countenance, 
emiling his weicoue, and his approbation at her 


punctuality, out of the carriage window ; and was 
never remembered till the Sunday was over, and 
she was in bed, trying to recall every word that ho 
uttered, and attempting to live over again the events 
and conversations of the day. 

These meetings were, however, now to be inter- 
rupted by the illness of Fanny Thompson ; who, hav- 
ing no ardor to defend her from damp evenings, 
caught cold from a water excursion with the lovers, 
and became so ill as to be confined to her bed with a 
rheumatic fever. Night after night did Caroline 
attend her three hours by her bedside ; and physi- 
cian after physician was sent by Hartley, in the 
hopes of effecting a speedy cure ; still Fanny’s “ re- 
creant limbs” refused their office. Flower of mus- 
tard, warm baths, flesh brushes, and Caroline’s at- 
tentions were useless; the obstinate fever still main- 
tained its ground ; and during this period, Caroline 
was resolute in her determination not to see Hart- 
ley, It was in vain he pleaded ; in vain he wrote ; 
in vain he waylaid her in her nightly visits to her 
friend ; he could obtain nothing but the privilege 
of a hurried walk with her from Regent street to 
Fanny’s lodging, which was situated in some go- 
thic street in Holborn. 

The many, many times that Hartley had wished 
the confidante, or, as he designated her, the duenna, 
at the bottom of the sea ; or seized with the gout, 
or the cramp, or any thing that would have prevent- 
ed her from forming a trio with himself and Caro- 
line, now occurred to his memory by way of pu- 
nishment. He had little anticipated the possibility 
of the time arriving, when he should devoutly pray 
for the health and presence of the eternal Fanny 
'rhompson. No bulletin, however, of a prince was 
more anxiously expected by a minister he patroniz- 
ed, and whose office depended on the master’s con- 
valescence, than the nightly and inatinal report of 
the progress of Fanny Thompson’s disorder. As 
for her mother, she was quite astonished at the con- 
stant inquiries of a dashing livery servant after the 
health of her daughter, and almost began to suspect 
that all was not quite right, and to question Fanny 
more particularly. 

In the expectation that a few days would termi- 
nate her friend’s illness, Caroline waited with 
patience, and adhered, without much difficulty, to 
her resolution to forego the pleasure of Hartley’s 
society, and to deny him the usual interviews. 
But, as week after week passed on, without any 
amelioration of Fanny’s complaint, the privation 
became almost too great for her to bear. She be- 
came irritable and impatient : memory painted the 
happy hours she had spent, and her feelings con- 
trasted them wofully with the present. She be- 
came angry with herself — with Fanny — with the 
rheumatic fever — with the whole world. In the 
mean time. Hartley wrote to her daily ; and in every 
letter became more and more urgent for a renewal 
of their intercourse. He recalled to her mind its 
innocence; he pictured to her the past prudence of 
his conduct; and was sometimes so hurried away 
by the impetuosity of his feelings, that none could 
have read his letters, and doubted his intentions of 
making Caroline his wife, although there was no 
explicit declaration of the kind. The hurried inter- 
views, which he contrived in the street, only added 
to the irritation of both parties ; since they were 
passed in violent pleadings and reproaches on his 


THE OXONIANS, 


61 


part, and forced denials on hers; till, at length, 
they were both worked up to such a state of mutual 
excitement, that they were each of them almost in 
as great a fever as poor Fanny herself. 

(Jaroline found her daily occupation more dis- 
tasteful than ever. She became restless and uneasy ; 
the days seemed interminable, and her nights were 
in reality sleepless; and Hartley’s daily threatening 
and half angry letters preyed upon her mind. 

As to Hartley, he alteriirttely cursed the eternal 
fever of Fanny, and prayed for her recovery ; then 
entreated, and then scolded Caroline; accused her 
of want of affection, of want of confidence, and 
scarcely ever quitted her, in their now short inter- 
views, without leaving her in tears. 

At length his perseverance began to prevail. 
Caroline recollected the reasons she had for confi- 
aence in him — her own heart sickened at the total 
absence of that intercourse, which had been so 
delicious, and from which she had derived so much 
pleasure, and pleaded for a partial revival of it. 
Fanny’s recovery seemed farther removed than ever, 
and her delicacy prevented her venturing to make 
another confidant. Under all these circumstances, 
and unable herself to bear, with any degree of 
equanimity, the almost total absence which she 
had of late compelled herself to endure, she began 
to relent; and at length agreed to meet her lover 
once more, upon the first Sunday ; upon the express 
stipulation, however, that it was only to be for a 
morning drive in his cabriolet. 

Some may imagine, by the difficulty Caroline 
made in granting this meeting, or, indeed, at any 
time, in meeting Hartley alone, that she doubled 
either herself or her lover. But this was not the 
ease. Caroline always looked forward, at some 
period or other, to be his wife; and, should that 
ever be the case, she knew that prudence, under 
the present circumstances, would excite and ensure 
future confidence and esteem ; and, as the wife of 
Hartley, she wished to look back to her present 
trying situation, without having the slightest breach 
of delicacy with which to reproach herself. 

Secure in Caroline’s promise. Hartley tasted of 
the first real pleasure since the period of Fanny 
Thompson’s illness ; and though Caroline’s heart 
trembled as she made it, she too derived some com- 
fort at the anticipation of again seeing her lover 
as she had done. Thus they both anticipated the 
coming Sunday with anxiety ; he all impatience, 
that made every intervening moment seem an age ; 
and she with a trembling anticipation of the plea- 
8ure it was to bring her, that rather shortened than 
lengthened the hours she had to pass before it 
arrived. 

At length came that Saturday night which clo- 
ses the labors of the week; and away hurried the 
common world to their marketing, and the fashion- 
able world to the completion of their weekly plea- 
sures at the Opera. Caroline spent the evening 
by Fanny Thompson’s bedside — Hartley whiled 
it away at the Opera ; but neither of them counted 
that Saturday night as the best they had ever pas- 
sed with regard to sleep. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

A SUNDAY, 

Sunday ! what a variety ot sensations does this 
day of rest create. — How many, ere its morning 
dawns, throw up their sash windows, and cast an 
anxious glance towards the east, to ascertain w he- 
ther it is to be rain or sunshine ; whether the new 
pelisse and bonnet are to be sported, and returned 
unspotted to their domiciles of drawer and band- 
box, where neatly papered, they are to rest while 
their mistress fags to be again brought into work, 
when she takes her pleasure ; or whether these 
cherished garments are to be “ drenched with en- 
vious rain.” How many hearts flutter at the anti- 
cipation of what the pleasures of the day may pro- 
duce; and how many would willingly prolong its 
hours through the remainder of the week, insen- 
sible that it derives more than half the enjoyment 
for which they prize it, from the very circumstance 
of its recurring but once in seven days. 

Caroline had passed nearly a sleepless night ; 
and when, worn out with watching, she sank for 
a few moments into forgetfulness, her dreams were 
any thing but pleasant. She rejoiced, therefore, 
that the morning avocation did not require her 
usual early rising, and contrary to her custom, she 
remained in her bed long after every other inmate 
of this dormitory of the industrious priestesses of 
this pandemonium had quitted their pillows, and 
congratulated each other on the promising prospect 
of a fine day, afforded by the blue sky, and by the 
reflected gleams of the sun, which shone upon the 
opposite attics. 

Disturbed, however, by the whisking of kerchiefs 
and ribands, and by all the bustle of the toilet, 
which rendered the room a little Bable, as far as 
the confusion of tongues could make it so, she 
arose; and dressing herself all but her outer gar- 
ment, she sat down quietly, or lent any assistance 
that her mo’^e impatient companions might re- 
quire. 

These, without having read any works on the 
division of labor, or madd any abstruse calculation, 
upon the rule-of-three principle, that if one pair 
of hands can do so much within a given time, so 
many more could accomplish a larger quantity of 
work, had certainly hit upon some methods by 
which much time at the toilet was saved. As one 
instance of which, these young political economists 
laced each other’s stays in a circle ; by which 
means this operation was performed for six pair of 
Robinson’s, or Vestirin’s corsets, in precisely the 
same quantity of time that was necessary for the 
completion of one. Unluckily, the circle was 
a little disturbed on the morning in question, by 
the circumstance of one of the laces having sud- 
denly given away at an additional twitch required 
by the superior roiundity of one of the young 
ladies ; in consequence of which, the upright po- 
sition of the fair operators was slightly disturbed ; 
and they were thrown, on what a sailor would 
have called “ their beam ends,” by the necessary 
consequence of missing stays. 

As for Caroline, she was not long suffered to re- 
main idle. It was, “ Oh, Miss Dormer, pin this 


62 


THE OXONIANS. 


ri&ancl on” — “Dear Miss Dormer, tie my sash” — 
Button my frock, there's a dear” — “ Do now just 
take this stitch up, there’s a love” — « Pray pull 
out sleeves” — “ Oh dear, do tuck in this little 

bit of white;” etcetera, etcetera; till the whole 
operation of the toilet was finished, and Caroline 
was again suffered’ to repose in quiet on the corner 
of the bed. During this process, many a fair face, 
while waiting for its turn at the single looking-glass 
allowed for their adornment, popped out of the 
window with an anxious glance towards the sky ; 
while each, like the smooth surface of the silver 
lake, reflected the clouds, or brightness of the 
heavens, in the disappointment which appeared 
upon their brow, or the exultation which dwelt in 
their smiles, as hope or fear predominated as to rain 
or sunshine. 

At length, all the ceremonials of lacing, tying, 
stitching, and arranging was finished, and the look- 
ing-glass left to its own reflections. Then arose 
other anxieties; no less than those experienced for 
the arrival of the beaux, for whom these operations 
of the toilet had been endured. Every head was 
now, therefore, stretched out of the windows to 
catch the first glimpse of the cicisbeo for the day ; 
and each enjoyed her anticipations of the figure 
her beau might cut, in comparison with those of 
her companions. 

At last a tilbury turns the corner, A general 
agitation proclaims that it comes for one ; and a 
particular blush, or flush, or whatever that delightful 
suffusion may be called, which animates alike the 
countenance of ‘the dutchess and the dairy-maid, in 
love and in hate, in anger and in delight, designates 
W'hich that one is. “ Oh Anna,” exclaimed half a 
dozen at once, “it is Mr. Jenkins, I declare.” 
Anna does not know the tilbury, for it is a different 
one every Sunday ; she does not know the stud, 
for many and various are the black, white, and gray, 
geldings, mares, and galloways, with which the 
livery-stable keeper kindly permits her beau, to 
risk her neck, as well as his own, for the trifling 
remuneration of fifteen shillings for the day. But 
she does recognise the bright blue coat, with velvet 
collar to match; and Anglesey-colored wellingtons, 
which met her full approbation when first put on 
six months since ; she does recognise the redun- 
dancy of frill which lies plaited between the stripes 
of his waistcoat; the shirt-collar which intrudes 
upon the well-trimmed whisker up to the ear, which 
looks a little “ dog’s eared” from the custom of 
wearing a pen behind it for six days out of the 
seven. She recognises also the bushy hair, poodled 
under the hat; and the cloak lined with scarlet, 
whose shag collar, of the same bright hue, hangs 
gracefully pendant over the back of the tilbury, 
hiding certain indications of shabbiness in the 
vehicle, and astonishing the country natives into 
temporary notions that its proprietor has some pre- 
tensions to military rank. Unacquainted with that 
dexterous turn of the wrist, and knowing near-side 
touch of the whip which brings stud and tilbury 
close up to the kirb, (for once a week is not suffi- 
cient practice for good tilbury driving,) he placed 
his horse in the same relative position to the door 
of his lady’s domicile, that an inexperienced dancer 
places himself to his partner, when he has either 
pastourelled it too much, or pirouetted it too little, 
in a quadrille. 


There was now a general shaking of hands — a 
little female kissing between bosom friends. “ Good- 
by, Anna;” “ a pleasant day, Anna ;” and, “ upon 
my word, Mr. Jenkins looks very well ;” with other 
hastily uttered sentences, mingled with the leave- 
taking. A run to the glass gave the assurance 
that saucissons were all in order, and a run down 
stairs brought her to her lover; who, too careful, 
or too fearful, of his horse, to look up to the win- 
dow, as he drove down the street, now for the 
first lime gave his dulcinea’s lilac spencer and pink 
plumes a look of approbation. Too sensible to 
quit his seat, and leave his horse at liberty, through 
any mistaken politeness ; he yet ventures, for once, 
to transfer the reins to his whip hand, as too many 
are apt to do when a favorite female is in the way, 
while he stretched out the other by way of assis- 
tance to his fair companion. She placed her kid- 
colored palm in his, and her foot on the step ; one 
jerk seated her in the valley formed between the 
driving seat and the side of the gig; a little ad- 
justment arranged her garment modestly over the 
pretty silk clad ancles ; a corner of the aforesaid 
cloak gave its military protection against any acci- 
dental joil, or zephyr ; the parasol was waved up 
to the window by way of a last adieu ; a few ad- 
monitory touches of the whip, very carefully ad- 
ministered, accompanied by a ya-up, soon induced 
the nag to put himself out of a stand-still, and off 
they started ; the charioteer prudently deferring 
his how dy’e do’s, and other greetings, till he 
should have got off the stones, and be in a good 
wide road, where he is in less danger of coming 
in contact with any rival Sunday jockey. 

The attention of the party was now arrested by 
the appearance of a glass-coach, or rather a hack- 
ney coach without its number, which now slowly 
drew up to the door. From this carriage sprang 
three young men, in readiness to hand their respec- 
tive demoiselles into the vehicle, the hire of which 
had been clubbed at seven shillings each, so that 
they had none of the cares of driving on their 
hands, to impede their impatience or politeness. 

One of these new comers had, like our tilbury 
friend, a dash of the military, and was accordingly 
habited in a blue frock-coat, the edges and seams 
covered with black lace, at which his mistress al- 
ways looked when she favored him with the air of 
“ Should he upbraid ;” while something resem- 
bling a duck’s tail, but without its power of wag- 
ging, dangled at the bottom of his back. His 
black cravat is neatly fastened hy two turquoise 
pins, chaimed together as strongly as man and 
wife, while his heels display a pair of spurs, which 
gave their master the character of keeping a horse, 
without its attendant expense of rack and manger 
— for spurs eat nothing. 

The second was of another order of beings — 
called, as well. He was clothed in top-boots, white 
corduroys, a waistcoat scored like a leg of pork, 
and a rough drab toggray, buttoned across the 
chest with mother-of-pearl buttons of the size of 
crown pieces, while a horse and jockey appear to 
be galloping over the ponderous folds of his shawl 
neckcloth, by way of broach. 

The third beau was a complete contrast to the 
second ; for having by some accident heard that 
stockings were dress, he appears ready-dressed for 
dinner at eight in the morning, with blue coat 


THE OXONIANS. 63 


thrown open, white waistcoat, black trowsers, and 
ribbed silk stockings. 

Adieux were soon uttered to the remaining 
friends. The looking-glass w'as once more put in 
requisition, the door flew open, and the belles and 
beaux greeted each other by hearty shakes of the 
hand. They were soon hurried into the coach, 
which wriggled with their settlement into the seat, 
and proved what one of the females of the party 
called a “tight fit.” The swell cried out, “All 
right, Jarvey !” The coachman woke from his 
momentary doze, and the patient horses walked off 
in a trot. 

A prim, smirking-looking gentleman, seated 
exactly in the centre of a hackney-chariot, and of 
his shirt collar, the points of which endangered 
his eyes at every jolt; and most carefully avoiding 
any contact between the dirty lining of the vehicle 
and his well-brushed coat, carries otf a fifth ; while 
a short, thick-set, middle-aged man, with a blue 
coat of dimensions sufficiently ample for any two 
modern habits, his pockets looking like panniers, 
his corporation covered with an acre of hlack serge, 
which “ the least taste in life” of Irish linen, divided 
from a pair of nankeen trowsers that reached to the 
middle of his white cotton stockings, by his diagonal 
crossing, seemed to direct his steps to the same 
house. But one now remained besides Caroline, 
and her white beaver bonnet was thrown back 
with disappointment, as she exclaimed, “ dear me ! 

here’s Pa, instead of ” The name died on her 

lips. The elderly gentleman was the only one who 
w^as compelled to knock at the door, or who was 
kept for a moment waiting. 

“Well, good-bj^ Miss Dormer! sorry to leave 
you alone so solentary,” was uttered in a tone of 
sympathy, and with a little more feeling than if she 
had been fetched by her lover instead of her father. 
She tripped slowly down stairs, opened the door, 
and found her hand suddenly twitched under her 
Papa’s arm, and tightly confined between the elbow 
and the rib ; while the ideas of the Park and 
Kensington Gardens fade before the prospect of the 
parish church or meeting house, and a dull cup of 
tea in the parlor behind the shop. 

This young lady’s mamma had been in the same 
line with her daughter in her younger days, and 
from her recollections of what happened to herself, 
made her good man go after “their Sophy,” to 
preserve her from the same perils. The good 
woman herself is too prudent to mention her reasons 
for this caution, which are perhaps too vs'ell guessed 
by the husband — “ experientia docet.” 

Caroline was now left alone. She had been too 
much occupied by her own thoughts to share in the 
hilarity of her companions, which was, however, at 
all times quite dissonant with her ideas of pleasure. 
She had, however, cheerfully contributed her assis- 
tance to the toilet, and with sincerity wished them 
the pleasant day they expected; though she could 
scarcely prevent a smile of contempt from playing 
upon her full red lip as she contemplated their 
vulgar delights. As she lost sight of her last com- 
panion she began slowly to complete her own toilet, 
for which she had sufficient leisure, since several 
hours were yet to elapse before her politer lover 
would he in readiness to receive her. Caroline 
needed not much of the “ foreign aid of ornament 


her beauty was of that cast which derives no aid 
from decoration ; the simpler her attire the better 
she appeared, and the simplicity as well as correct- 
ness of her own taste, taught her that she was, 
“ when unadorned adorned the most.” Female 
vanity is, however, never entirely asleep upon this 
point; and as her features were reflected in the 
mirror, she could not help feeling the advantageous 
contrast which their regularity and expression ex- 
hibited, to the red, white, and plump cheeks of her 
companions. Theirs was the beaut}) of health, hers 
that of sentiment. 

There was the dark, liquid eye, and blood-red 
lip, that bespeak a soul of deep feeling ; the large 
ivory forehead, over which hung long curls of raven 
black hair, that reached to and rested upon the bo- 
som — rendered whiter by the contrast ; the pale 
cheek, that never exhibited the color of the rose, 
unless called there by passion and feeling ; the 
arched and dark brow ; were all that species of fe- 
male loveliness which an artist would have selected 
to portray a Gulnare ; and which, in the higher 
walks of life, would have given their possessor a 
place in that Gallery of Beauty which the “ on dits” 
of the day say is preparing, to rival those which 
graced a gallery of the same description in the time 
of Charles II. 

Little as Caroline had to do at her dressing ta- 
ble, she yet lingered over her toilet, eking out all 
its minor occupations, so as to lessen, as much as 
possible, the hours that she should have to wait, 
between the time of its completion and the coming 
of her lover. At length, however, every pin was 
placed ; every fold adjusted : there no longer re- 
mained an excuse for another moment’s lingering. 
Casting, therefore, one more look in the glass ; tak 
ing up her bonnet, and throwing her shawl over her 
arm, she descended to the first floor, which, serving 
as a show-room all the week, was set apart as the 
young ladies’ drawing-room on Sundavs. 

Just as she entered the room, the striking of 
St. James’s clock forced upon her mind the painful 
recollection of the length of time that must elapse 
before Hartley was to come ; and, for a moment she 
envied her companions, at least, the early rising of 
their lovers. 

After pacing the room, a little impatiently, a few 
times, and casting an anxious glance at the window, 
as a few light clouds would now and then, for a 
moment, obscure the sun, she threw herself upon 
the sofa with a determination to wait with pa- 
tience; and, who is there that has not frequently 
made this resolution, and as frequently broken it] 
Still Caroline’s heart beat violently : she trembled, 
she knew not why, at the step she was about to 
take ; and more than once wavered in her purpose. 
But then came over her the recollection of Hart- 
ley’s love ; the fear of his anger ; the knowledge 
of his honor aud prudence ; and, above all, her own 
knowledge and confidence in her own innocence ; 
and she could not bear to inflict upon him the pain 
of disappointment, and perhaps did not like to bear 
it herself. Besides, it was but a drive for an hour 
or two ; and poor Hartley had behaved so well, and 
undergone such privations lately; and then Fanny 
Thompson would be sure to be well by the next 
Sunday; and this, therefore, was the only time there 
would be a necessity for her seeing him alone. Still 


64 


THE OXONIANS. 


it was breaking through a resolution, founded upon 
her ideas of the preservation of self-respect; and 
she was uneasy. 

The sudden tolling of the bell for church recalled 
to her mind, at this moment, all her long forgotten 
duties. There was an association in the sound 
with all her recollections of early days, when it was 
the signal for her father and herself, to pursue their 
quiet path across the meadows that led to his parish 
church. There, she was wont to help him to robe 
in the vestry, with the assistance of the aged clerk, 
who had cried Amen in the same desk for nearly 
sixty years. The pleasant meads ; the meandering 
stream that ran through them ; the peasantry dof- 
fing their hats, and bobbing their courtesies, as 
they passed ; the vestry, with its bare walls and 
heavy. mullioned windows, almost obscured by the 
thick clusters of ivy which time had created there ; 
the trembling hand of old Adam, as he assisted her 
in putting on the surplice: and, above all, the holy 
quiet of the humble church, as she slid silently into 
her pew, and sunk upon the hassock in a moment- 
ary prayer of preparation; all came over her mind 
with an intensity, and seemed to lie before her with 
a vividness, that, contrasting it with the present tu- 
mult of her heart, she buried her face with her 
hands, and burst into tears. 

As she recovered from this burst of feeling, her 
eyes rested upon some books of devotion, which lay 
mingled with some novels on the mantle-shelf. 
She recollected the consolation she had derived 
from their perusal in the two great griefs of her 
life — the death of her parents and her supposed 
desertion by Hartley ; and she attempted to read 
them now, but their effect was lost. Her heart 
was cold to the influence of religion. The same 
subject was tasteless in the present state of her 
mind, and she again sat absorbed in her own feel- 
ings of mingled impatience for her lover’s coming, 
and fear of his arrival. At length one of those 
seducing volumes in boards, with Andrew’s name 
on the back, yclept a novel, attracted her notice, 
and taking the book from the shelf, she sat down 
to it doggedly, with the determination to read. 
The subject of this book was more in accordance 
with the state of her mind. It was the history of 
a love not unlike her own, and she soon became 
interested in the fate of the heroine, and fancied a 
similar denouement in her own case. That clock, 
however, which during her impatience had given 
such painful note of the slow progress of time, at 
length struck the three quarters ; she listened in 
vain for the fourth ; but no ; there were still fifteen 
minutes to 'elapse. But Hartley was generally 
early ; generally before his time. The book was 
thrown away. The hat and scarf were laid where 
they could be the more readily seized when wanted. 
Her movements up and down the room now be- 
came quicker; her glances out of the wdndow were 
no longer directed to the sky ; at the rattle of every 
carriage she involuntarily approached the balcony; 
and, as it passed, and its sound died away in the 
distance, so faded the flush of hope from her counte- 
nance. 

“No, no,” she exclaimed, “he will not come 
before his time.” The hour itself struck, and she 
raised her hands in thankfulness that the painful 
time of suspense was past. 

As the sound of the clock died upon her ear, a 


sickening sensation came over her; a trembling 
anticipation that he might not come ; and in that mo- 
ment of agitation she felt, for the first time, how 
ardently she loved Hartley. She now listened and 
looked with an eagerness that was painful to both 
sight and hearing; and almost uttered an exclama- 
tion of joy as she saw the cabriolet turn the corner 
of the street. The calash was up to its fullest 
extent of concealment; nothing was discernible 
from within but the dove-colored kid gloves of the 
driver, dexterously and gently managing the fine 
high-spirited bay, whose veins, starting through his 
silky skin, proclaims the excellence of his blood, 
while his bone renders it rather questionable, 
whether, like some of our noble families, he has 
not had it strengthened from some source not quite 
so pure as that of his ancestry. 

As she glanced at the well-appointed equipage, 
she could not help for a moment drawing a 
comparison between the elegant cabriolet of her 
lover, and the dislocated tilbury of her humbler 
companion. It was, however, but the thought of a 
moment, or only served to remind her of the 
greater difference between herself and her lover ; 
and Hartley would have been all in all to her, had 
he possessed no equipage, and nothing but himself 
and his affections to give her. 

Her scarf was now hurriedly and carelessly 
thrown over her shoulder ; her bonnet loosely tied, 
without even and appeal to the glass ; and she 
rushed to the door. As the clock struck the quar- 
ter, however, she paused for a moment : female 
pride seemed to have a temporary influence over 
her, and she determined Hartley should not per- 
ceive her impatience. 

A few minutes, however, brought her to the 
carriage, which was carefully drawn up close to 
the curb in the quiet of St. James’s square ; the 
ponderous knee-board opened, and the next mo- 
ment she was seated by the side of her lover, pant- 
ing with the agitation of pleasure, mingled with 
the fear of having been seen. The knee-board 
was closed, Caroline drew the oilskin curtain, so 
as to render the concealment a little more effec- 
tual, and the steed, obedient to the rein, started at 
a brisk peace. 

A rapid trot of a few miles cleared them from 
all the dust and incumbrances which the metropoli- 
tan roads generally exhibit on a Sunday, and they 
found themselves in a retired spot with a beautiful 
country before them. 

The horse was now reined in, the oilskin curtain 
drawn aside, and the calash thrown one fold back, 
so as to give them air, and a better view of the 
scenery by which they were surrounded. They 
had now time for their mutual greetings; and 
Hartley was more than usually animated in his 
expressions of delight at their being together again 
in all the confidence of mutual intercourse. Caro- 
line blushed, and smiled her sympathy with him in 
this feeling ; and had certainly never looked so 
beautiful in the eyes of her lover. His presence 
had driven away all the presentiments by which she 
had been oppressed, her spirits became exhilirated, 
she openly expressed the happiness of her heart, 
and abandoned herself to the innocent enjoyment 
of the moment. ' 

In Caroline’s ideas, the sun had never shone so 
brilliantly ; the iky never looked so bright ; tho 


THE OXONIANS. 


65 


flowers never bloomed so freshly and sweetly as 
they did on that day. She discovered a thousand 
beauties in the landscape, which had before escap- 
ed the observation ; all things took their color from 
the complexion of her own mind ; and that was so 
filled with pleasure and happiness, that every 
thing was “ couleur de rose.” — In this state of en- 
joyment, they proceeded, chatting, laughing, and 
sighing by turns ; and neither of them regretting 
the absence of Fany Thompson, who, with her 
rheumatic fever, appeared to have been entirely for- 
gotten, till, arriving at the brow of a hill, the horse 
himself stopped to remind his master that a cabrio- 
let was not a tilbury ; and Hartley permitted him 
to rest, that he and Caroline might enjoy, at their 
leisure, the beauty of the extensive prospect be- 
fore them. 

It was a lovely day in the commencement of 
June; the summer sun shone splendidly, and light- 
ed up with its rays the rippling waves of our noble 
river, that flowed majestically in the distance. The 
cattle had sought a shelter in the shade ; every 
thing bespoke that stillness which is only felt on 
a summer’s day. Nothing living was to be seen 
except the fly, whose buzzing rather added to than 
disturbed the repose of the scene ; while the new- 
mown hay, strewed lightly over the surrounding 
meadows, or gathered into cocks, .sent a delicious 
perfume through the air, that stole over the senses 
with a degree of voluptuousness, which those only 
can conceive who have experienced its effects. 

As Caroline contemplated the scene before her, 
and felt its calmness; as she looked at the huntble 
village which lay at their feet, and saw the blue 
smoke curling and mingling with the clear ether 
of the atmosphere, as it rose through the patches 
of plantation in which the cottages were situated; 
a wish stole over her mind that she could be the 
inhabitant of one of them with Hartley for her 
companion. At this wish, and the knowledge 
of its futility, a sigh escaped her bosom, and her 
dark eye filled with a tear, which might have 
found its way down her cheek, had not Hartley 
stopped it at its source, as lovers sometimes do stop 
their mistresses’ tears when they are permitted to 
do so. Here these lovers seemed as though they 
could linger forever; the horse* was, however, no 
lover ; and betrayed his impatience to proceed by 
sundry snortings and pawings ; and on Hartley’s 
representing the real necessity for giving him a 
few minutes’ rest and some food, Caroline con- 
sented to descend the hill to the village that lay at 
its foot, instead of immediately turning back agree- 
aHy to her first proposition; for she could not 
bear the idea of distressing a noble animal who 
performed his duty so will. 

In the most beautiful spot of this retired village, 
a little removed from the rest of the houses, a little 
inn was designated by the caricature of a lamb, 
which swung backwards and forwards from a high 
post on the opposite side of the road. It was a 
neat, white, cottage -looking house, with green 
verandahs along its front and sides, and the whole 
displaying an appearance of domestic comfort that 
induced them to alight while the horse was taken 
to the stable to be dressed ; an operation which 
Hartley said was absolutely necessary. 

An obsequious, fat, and good-natured landlady 
ushered them into a parlor at the back part of the 


inn, which, hanging over a gentle trout stream, 
commanded one of the prettiest prospects of tho 
surrounding country. The parlor was furni^jbeJ 
in a style very superior to any thing indicated 
by the outside of the inn. There was almost every 
luxury which graces a modern drawing-room, 
although in a rustic form. This was accounted 
for by the landlady’s telling them that it was used 
as a fishing house during the season by some vete- 
ran disciples of old Isaac Walton, who valued 
their comfort as much as their fishing. The whole 
had indeed such an air of neatness, snugness, and 
comfort, that it was enough to tempt the stay of 
any stray traveller who had happened to harbor 
there; and a knowing person would have easily 
imagined that it was not Hartley’s first visit, 
though he expressed quite as much surprise at the 
appearance of the place as Caroline herself. 

The clock now announced an hour so late that 
it was impossible for Caroline to think of getting 
back in any time for the family dinner, which was 
always provided in the establishment; and she 
was at length prevailed upon by Hartley to allow 
him to order that meal for them there, which the 
officious landlady promised should be got ready 
while they took a stroll through the meadows. 

This arrangement completed, arm in arm, and 
sometimes, in the more retired spots, even more 
familiarly, they wandered for a short delicious hour 
by the side of the stream that ran through the vil- 
lage ; now contemplating the prospect — now anti- 
cipating future happiness, though never forgetting 
the enjoyments of the present. Hartley was more 
tender, more respectful than usual — Caroline more 
loving more confiding. Their hearts seemed wrap- 
ped up in each other; and certainly that of Caro- 
line had not another feeling, nor her imagination 
another thought, but those she experienced for her 
lover. She hung upon his arm ; she listened .to 
his accents; she smiled her approbation of his 
sprightlier sallies, and her eyes suffused with tears, 
and her cheeks flushed with a maiden’s pleasure at 
his tender protestations ; and thus they wandered 
on, till the signal from the village inn recalled 
them to their dinner in the delightful little parlor, 
rendered still more pleasant by the murmuring of 
the stream that roiled its clear waves beneath its 
windows. 

The moon was shining brightly in the dark blue 
sky, with its light now and then hid by the gossa- 
mer clouds that hurried over it, when Hartley’s cu- 
briolet was seen slowly returning through one of 
the green lanes which it had perambulated in the 
morning. The horse was as prancing and spirited 
as at the commencement of the journey; but a 
cloud had come over the happiness of those whom 
he was bearing to their homes. Hartley was si- 
lent and thoughtful ; his face appeared flushed ; and 
he sometimes checked his steed with an impatience 
that betrayed some internal agitation. Caroline 
had sunk into the corner of the cabriolet ; her face 
was buried in her handkerchief, and her bosom 
heaved with convulsive sobs. If for a moment her 
bashful eyes fell upon the clear white light of the 
moon, she shrunk from it as though ashamed to 
meet its rays. The passage of the clouds, which 
created a moment’s darkness, seemed a relief. She 
would then shrinkingly approach Hartley, lay her 


6G 


THE OXONIANS. 


beating temple on his shouUler, and appear to seek 1 
his protection as the only blessing, the only safety j 
in the wide world. A pressure of the hand or of 
the head tenderly against his bosom was the only 
reply he made to this silent appeal. 

As the cabriolet approached town, and the lamp- 
lighted streets met her eyes, she sobbed more Qon- 
vulsively; but by a great effort overcame her agita- 
tion, as she drew near her home. At length the 
cabriolet stopped ; the time of the parting now 
came ; a moment or two elapsed before Caroline 
could summon sufficient courage to leave the car- 
riage. One convulsive grasp of the hand, and a 
mutual, scarcely articulated “ God bless you,” was 
all that passed. Strange anomaly ! the victim and 
the destroyer calling down the blessing of the Al- 
mighty. 

Hartley lashed his steed into almost a gallop. Ca- 
roline hurried to the door of her residence. She 
slid by the servant wffio admitted her, and stole in 
darkness to her bed ; glad that the lateness of the 
hour enabled her to do so unperceived by her com- 
panions, who were long since reposing in sound 
slumbers, fatigued by the pleasures of the day. 
Here she again gave way to her grief, and welted 
her pillow with the bitterest tears that a wmman can 
shed. The clouds had passed away, and the full 
moon shone brightly into her eyes ; 

But none shall see the day, 

When the clouds shall pass away, 

Which that dark hour left on the maiden’s name. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

VARIOUS. 

Lady Orville went on weaving her webs, and 
laying her plans, only to have them rendered abor- 
tive by the very person for whose advantage she 
intended them. It was in vain that she lectured 
Lady Sophia. That young lady was willing 
enough to marry Hartley, because she saw all the 
advantages of the match. None knew better than 
she did tha merits of fifteen thousand a year, and a 
peerage in reversion ; none appreciated more than 
she did the various appendages of such an income, 
and such an expectancy. A house in Grosvenor- 
Square, and a place in the country; temporary 
establishments at Cheltenham in the autumn, and 
at Brighton in the winter; a box at the opera; a 
subscription at Alraacks; and all the other indis- 
pensables to married happiness, were all duly prized 
by Lady Sophia ; and she knew that she could not 
be happy without all this; and that a union with 
Hartley would ensure them. But then, it was too 
much to give up waltzing with Henry Fitzroy ; 
gallopading with Lord Henry Mildmay ; riding 
with the guardsmen ; and flirting with the Conde 
di Altemira. Where was the use of being young, 
handsome, and witty, if she could not be gay, 
coquettish, and satirical 1 It was quite unreason- 
able in Mr. Hartley, or any other Mr., and more 
particularly of her mamma, who had not yet given 


up flirting herself, to require that she should 
resign the privileges of youth, beauty, and animal 
spirits. 

It was in vain that Lady Orville told her that 
the privation w'as only for a time ; that the moment 
the marriage knot was lied, she might flirt, and 
dance, and ride as much, and with whom she 
pleased ; Lady Sophia saw the advantages, and ^ 
wished for their enjoyment, but had not courage 
enough to give up temporary pleasures, for what 
her mother called permanent advantages. Besides, 
of late. Hartley had always come in just as their 
parties were breaking up ; had quitted them almost 
immediately ; and always appeared perfectly dis* 
trait. We can account for that, although Lady 
Sophia could not ; and though he was never so 
agreeable as a dozen other men she could rann 
among her admirers, it is true that Hartley might 
have done very well for a husband, could she have 
secured him without much trouble; but for an 
agreeable flirtation, he was, in Lady Sophia’s opin- 
ion, “ toute autre chose.” 

Thus, Lady Orville saw one of her favorite plans 
very likely to be thwarted ; for she felt but too 
sensibly that, to succeed. Hartley must be com- 
pletely enthralled, before the establishment of Mr. 
and Lady Emily Hartley in town. She knew that 
herself and familyiwould appear in a very different 
light to Lady Emily, when viewed amid the pursuits 
of London, than when merely seen in their annual 
visits to the Grove: where she had always artfully 
conformed to Lady Emily’s sentiments. — She had 
calculated upon the rapid effect of the new mode 
of life upon the minds of two such young people, 
and had depended upon bringing these matches to 
a conclusion (so far as the inclinations of the par- 
ties were concerned.) before the Hartley family , 
came to Ijondon. This event had been delayed by 
the disinclination that Lady Emily felt again to 
embark in the great world, which Lady Orville’s 
bringing out her daughter had in some measure 
rendered, for the present'unnecessary. 

Such a woman as Lady Orville shrunk from the 
scrutiny of such a mind as Lady Emily’s, and felt 
the thinness of her veil of artifice before one who 
had no artifice hers^f. In London, every one was 
so occupied in playing their own games, that they 
had seldom time to detect the play of others ; 
scarcely any one traded openly upon their real 
motives. The only dependence Lady Orville had, 
w'as upon that uprightness of Lady Emily’s mind, 
which would prevent her suspicion of the contrary 
in another person : thus, like all engaged in a 
career of vice and deception, tacitly acknowledg- 
ing the virtue it is preying upon, or plotting 
against. 

As to the Admiral, the ease with wliich the good 
old gentleman was misled, had relieved her from 
many of the difficulties which his presence had at 
first thrown in the way of her plans ; and the idea 
he had imbibed of Orville’s and Emily’s love for 
each other, and of the deception of Forrester, rather 
tended to facilitate their union, which would deci- 
dedly have been accomplished but for the levity, or 
something worse, with which Orville treated the 
whole affair. 

The Admiral expressing his firm conviction of 
any attachment between the young people to Lady 
Emily, the Countess knew wmuld go a great way 


THE OXONIANS. 


67 


towards accelerating her wishes. The scene, of 
which he had been a witness in the library, had 
certainly impressed him with this notion, as far as 
Orville and Emily were concerned; but not all La- 
dy Orville’s assertions could prevail upon him to 
think the laughing, high-spirited Sophia dying in 
love for Hartley. It was in vain she endea- 
voured to prove thai these spirits were forced, to 
conceal the real sentiments of her heart, from the 
fear of their not being mutual. The Admiral knew 
something about “ the worm in the bud,” as 
he said, “concealment did not seem to prey on the 
damask cheek and he could not reconcile the 
dashing careless ease, and glow of full health which 
characterized Sophia’s person and manner, with his 
ideas of a love-sick damsel ; neither could he con- 
ceive the necessity of waltzing with a dozen men at 
night, riding with a dozen others in the morning, 
and flirting with every one who came in her way, 
even to the old gentleman himself, for the mere 
purpose of concealing a passion, which her mother 
asserted was secretly preying upon her heart, and 
undermining her health and spirits. 

Lady Orville would have had her daughter coun- 
terfeit a little appearance of the love-sick maiden, 
to have deceived the Admiral ; but if she ever at- 
tempted this, her naturally boisterous and satirical 
disposition had entirely spoiled the eflfect. 

Thus were her favorite schemes counteracted by 
the very persons to whom she naturally looked as 
coadjutors; and she even now began to doubt the 
accomplishment of the marriage between her son 
and Emily, from the circumstance of his becoming 
much more careless of preserving the influence he 
had evidently attained over her mind. 

The fact was, that Orville was one of those per- 
sons upon whose minds a fancy acts with the force 
of a passion. Two or three times in his life, this 
feeling or caprice had been excited in so great a 
degree, as to induce him to give up every other pur- 
suit until the prevailing fancy was gratified, and 
he was now thus influenced by the fancy which he 
had taken for his fair incognita. He had spoken to 
Mrs. Langley but for a few minutes, but he had 
been so struck by her demeanor, and by her beauty, 
of that peculiar style that he admired the most, that, 
unused to control his passions or baulk his fancy, 
he determined to leave nothing untried to gratify 
the inclination she had excited. Tadpole’s having 
seen Forrester enter the house, gave him some no- 
tion that he was in some way connected with her 
history ; and the idea of again rivalling him gave 
a zest to his pursuit. 

All the information which the convenient Tad- 
pole could gain was that Mrs. Roberts, the name 
by which Langley was known at his lodgings, led 
a very retired life ; that her husband (a particular 
stress laid upon this word b}" Tadpole, so as to give 
a doubt as to the correctness of the title) quitted 
her every morning, and never returned till very late 
at night ; generally indeed after the household had 
retired to rest. That his manners and address were 
very superior to those of the good lady’s other inmates, 
and not at all like a common second floor lodger’s. 
But not one word could Tadpole make out detri- 
mental to her character, or at all indicative of any 
levity of conduct, that could induce Orville to sup- 
pose that any open addresses would be received. 
Hi? notions of woman, were, however, formed by 


the worst of those with whom he associated ; and 
as some political philosopher has said that “ every 
man had his price ;” so was it Orville’s creed, that 
every woman was to be won, only attack her in the 
right way. Indeed, his estimation of the sex in ge- 
neral was at so low an ebb, that he used to say 
with the poet, that 

“ Gifts and giving, 

Will melt the chastest-seeming female living.*’ 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

BIVALS. 

Of all the miserable lives that are led in this 
world of ours, there is scarcely any to compare with 
that of a lover. I do not mean one of those namby- 
pamby lovers, whose affections are skin-deep, and 
whose vows are lip-deep, — who make love selon 
les regies, and get over a refusal by a trip to the 
Continent, or forget a disappointment in the arras 
of a mistress. No, no! these are not lovers; but 
let the heart once be completely engaged, let the 
mind once fix its only hope of happiness on a 
woman, and I defy any one to point out a man in 
the world, who, even under the most fortunate cir- 
cumstances, is not doomed to endure more miseries 
than that of Tantalus, in the suspense, uncertainty, 
and caprice which he will have to encounter. 

Women, why or wherefore, it is difficult to 
define, seem to triumph as much in the misery 
they can inflict, as in the happiness they have it in 
their power to bestow ; and to judge of the strength 
of a man’s affection, by the agonies he endures, 
more than by the pleasures he enjoys. As to a 
hackney-coach horse, which I take to be about as 
miserable a creature as exists in this very merciful 
world, its life is a mere sinecure in comparison with 
that of a lover. His fare finished, he takes his 
place on the stand and munches his oats out of his 
nosebag in peace and quietness. But a lover, 
“ God save the mark !” his fair never lets him rest ; 
if she loves him she teazes him with her caprices 
and her jealousies ; if she is uncertain of her senti- 
ments, she leads him on and on in uncertainty and 
suspense till she has made up her mind, and per- 
haps discards him at the very moment he expects 
the acceptance of his vows ; and if from the first, 
she cannot return his affection, female vanity can- 
not resist the temptation of showing ofl'her conquest, 
and leading her lover, like a Roman conqueror, to 
swell the number of captives in her train, and rattle 
his chains to the tune of her caprice. 

Poor Forrester, at any rate, felt the agonies of a 
lover to be not merely imaginary — tortured by sus- 
pense, the certainty of Emily’s change was almost 
more than he could endure. He did, however, 
endure it, and with a manly firmness that deserved 
a better fate. Certain at length of the futility of 
his hopes, and of the loss of his own happiness, he 
crushed the agonizing, though selfish feelings of his 
bosom, and turned his thoughts to the happiness of 
her he loved so truly ; anS felt a pang at the danger 


68 


THE OXONIANS. 


1 


which threatened her peace of mind, almost as 
great as that which he had experienced at the 
destruction of his own. 

He saw how Emily was dazzled by the brilliant 
attentions of Lord Orville, and knowing that noble- 
man’s principles and actions, with regard to women, 
he trembled lest she was following an ignis fatuus 
that would lead her to destruction. Not that For- 
rester for a moment dreamt of Lord Orville’s suc- 
cess in any dishonorable intention; but he dreaded 
tlie enthralment of Emily’s affections by one who 
was notoriously not a marrying man. 

He saw that any warning which he hinted to 
Emily herself was attributed to jealousy. Ho 
dreaded creating unhappiness in the breast of Mr. 
and Lady Emily Hartley too much to venture to 
disturb their serenity by his fears, and he found 
her brother too much in the tramels of Orville’s 
temptations to hope anything from him. Yet he 
saw Emily standing on the brink of a precipice ; 
on the point of giving her best affections to a man 
whom he knew to be heartless ; and, cruelly as she 
had treated him, he could not endure the idea of 
leaving her to the chance of such a fate as might be 
reserved for her, should she love him and find her 
love unreturned. In the midst of all his sufferings, 
Forrester had never blamed Emily; he saw the 
effect of the new life she was leading upon her 
young mind — he perceived the arts and blandish- 
ments by w^hich she was surrounded — he confessed 
his own inferiority to the other competitors for her 
favor, and he considered the change which had 
taken place in her heart but natural, and found a 
thousand excuses for that which had destroyed 
his happiness. 

At length, Forrester determined on an appeal to 
Lord Orville himself: as an old acquaintance and 
fellow-coiiegian, he thought that he might request 
some explanation of his intentions ; and as a friend 
of the Hartley family, he felt it his duty to make 
some struggle to preserve Emily from such a fate 
as he feared might await her, should Lord Orville 
have no serious meaning in the attentions he paid 
her. To do this he was sensible would require 
great command both of his temper and his feel- 
ings but the recollection of his motives, and the 
hope that the result might be beneficial to Emily, 
enabled him to conquer both, and arguing himself 
into a frame of mind proper for such an extra- 
ordinary interview, he sought Lord Orville. 

Orville was in his library writing billets-doux, on 
papers as various in their colors as the mistresses 
to whom they w'^re addressed were in their charac- 
ter and dispositions ; for he was one of those heart- 
less beings, a man of general intrigue, without a 
feeling for any one woman in particular. Orville’s 
fancy had been the only feeling that had as yet 
ever been excited by the other sex ; he was too 
thoroughly selfish to be capable of that generosity 
which is the characteristic of true affection. 

Emily’s beauty and innocence had perhaps made 
a deeper impression on his mind than any woman 
had yet done ; the contrast of her artlessness with 
the rust manners of those to whom he had been 
accustomed ; gave the zest of novelty to her at- 
tractions; and the idea of successfully rivalling his 
old friend Forrester, added to the gratification he 
felt in knowing that he w|is not viewed by her with 
indillerence. 


The fact was, that Orville disliked the straight- 
forward character of Forrester, which he considered 
a satire upon his own; and he was angry that ho 
could not feel that contempt for him, w'hich he 
was anxious to show to others, by the badinage 
with which he alw^ays treated him. He easily saw 
that Forrester’s whole soul was wrapped up in 
Emily ; that he had given her his best affections — 
that his sole hope of happiness rested upon her; 
and he gloried in being the means of overturning 
this hope, without any serious intentions of profit- 
ing himself by the change which he hoped to work 
in Emily’s affections, 'fhe increased seriousness 
of Forrester’s countenance and tone of voice as he 
entered the library could not fail to attract th^ at- 
tention of Lord Orville, as they exchanged the 
customary salutations of the morning, which were 
immediately succeeded by Forrester’s requesting 
Lord Orville’s serious attention for a few mo- 
ments. 

“ Serious attention !” exclaimed Orville. If I 
am to be so contrary to my nature as to be serious, 
I am glad, Forrester, that you have limited tho 
period of my gravity to a few minutes. You sen- 
tentious moralists really expect such light-minded 
mortals as myself to imitate your gravity !” 

This tone of badinage jarred upon Forrester’s 
feelings, and in some measure disconcerted him. 
He began likewise to feel that he had no ostensible 
authority to require the explanation he was about 
to demand. Conscious, however, of the rectitude 
of his intentions, and his certainty of Emily’s dan- 
ger being increased by the number of notes, evi- 
dently to and from women, that strewed the desk 
that was open before Orville, and which he was 
now closing, preparatory to his conversation with 
Forrester, he derived fresh courage, and proceeded: 

“ I am afraid, my Lord, that my plain and blunt 
manners will very little assimilate with those by 
which you are so constantly addressed ; yet I trust 
you will look through the surface of my conduct 
to its motives, and find a sufficient apology in 
them.” 

“ Oh the prudent Forrester’s conduct can never 
need any apology in the eyes of such a giddy fellow 
as myself ; except, indeed, that its wisdom is, per- 
haps, too strong a satire upon the folly of my 
own,” said Orville. 

“ For once, my Lord, I pray a truce to your 
badinage. Let it suffice that you triumph in it 
when others are present to appreciate your wit and 
my deficiency. I wish to put a plain question, 
and shall be obliged if you will honor me with a 
direct, and, if possible, a decisive answer,” said 
Forrester, with added earnestness, and increasing 
agitation, as he approached the subject upon which, 
in his mind, so much depended. 

“ Question ! question !” cried Lord Orville, imi- 
tating that cry in the House of Commons; “an 
appeal to the Lords, I declare.” 

This unfeeling continuance of the same tone 
almost roused Forrester’s indignation; but, feeling 
how much depended on keeping his temper, he 
restrained his feelings, and hastily said, “ Will 
your Lordship have the kindness to inform me 
whether your intentions are serious with regard to 
Miss Hartley!” 

Lord Orville affected to start although he had 
been perfectly aware of the nature of the question 


THE OXONIANS. 


69 


Forrester was about to put. Then, in a tone of 
coxcombry he proceeded, “ Serious 1 — why, really, 
I have scarcely ever taken the trouble to analyse 
any of my intentions with regard to women. I 
generally leave these things to the ‘ march of cir- 
cumstances,’ as political writers would call it — ” 
Nay, — nay, my liord — pray answer me — I 
entreat you — for your attentions are too evident 
not to be «lirected by your own will. I feel it to 
be a plain, perhaps a blunt question ; and I again 
refer you to my motives as its apology.” 

“ Well, then, Forrester,” said Orville, to adopt 
your own style of gravity, will you tell me by 
what authority you ask me this plain question?” 
A pause ensued, when Lord Orville proceeded: 
« Am I to answer you as a lover and a rival ?” 

“No, no!” hastily replied Forrester; “as nei- 
ther. Ail ideas of rivalry are past. I come not 
as a rival ; I come not as a lover ; for I must be 
both without a hope of success. That I have 
loved Miss Hartley — ardently, sincerely loved her — 
is known to her family — herself— and to the world ; 
but I have exerted my endeavors, and have reduced 
my feelings to those of friendship.” 

“ Very prudently done, and worthy of the philo- 
sophical Forrester,” observed Lord Orville, with an 
approving nod. 

“It is that friendship,” proceeded Forrester, 
“ which has induced my present visit Miss Hart- 
ley’s happiness is my object; and though my hopes 
of constituting that happiness have vanished, my 
warmest wishes for its existence, and my determi- 
nation to preserve it, still remain.” 

“And what, in the name of wonder, do you 
dread from me?” asked Lord Orville, half super- 
ciliously. 

“ I dread,” replied Forrester, “ that Miss Hart- 
ley’s inexperience in the world, and ignorance of 
your character, may attribute your evident atten- 
tions to other motives than the real ones, and that 
she may construe the elegance of a compliment into 
an expression of affection. I dread, lest the sensi- 
bility of her heart may be aroused by these atten- 
tions, before she is herself aware of it ; and, should 
they be unmeaning, I know those sensibilities to be 
sufficiently acute to render her miserable.” 

“ Mr. Forrester,” said Lord Orville, gravely, 
“ you now compell me to be serious. Once for all, 
the moment I understand the capacity in which you 
question me, I may, perhaps, be induced to answer 
you. If you demand it as a rival — ” 

“That, my Lord.” interrupted Forrester, “ I have 
already denied — for, ill-directed indeed is that pas- 
sion which can make the object of its love the sub- 
ject of a public dispute. I despise the man whose 
arguments lie in a bullet, and whose word is only 
sustained at tlve point of the sword. No ! were 
it any other man than yourself, Lord Orville, under 
the supposition that you were preferred, I should 
relinquish my hopes, and retire without a ques- 
tion.” 

“ But with me ?” was rather looked than asked 
by Orville. 

“ With you,” pursued Forrester, “ it is different. 
For, without any hope of ultimate success in a dis- 
honorable intention, you are not satisfied without in- 
spiring a passion which can never be honorably gra- 
tified, and from which you can derive no benefit, 

5 


I but the useless — and allow me to say — unmanly 
knowledge of your own power.” 

“ A very Seneca, I declare ! a second Daniel 
come to judgment. Why, Forrester, you are a 
walking philanthropist.” 

“ And can you,” continued Forrester, “ for the 
unsatisfactory gratification of a selfish vanity, risk 
the destruction of the happiness of such a being as 
Emily Hartley?” 

“ The destruction ofher happiness ! Nothing is 
farther from my intention, I assure you, than the 
destruction of Miss Hartley’s happiness. But why 
should I not be selfish ? It is the principle of man- 
kind ! self is the universal axis on which every 
thing turns ; and I hate singularity,” said Lord Or- 
ville. 

“ Nay, nay, my Lord, degrade not your nature 
to so low an ebb. There are feelings of generosity 
in our hearts, which raise us above the level on 
which you would place us; but mere selfishness is 
right earth, for earth alone stands fast on its own 
centre ; all things that have affinity with the iiea- 
vens move around the centre of another — ” 

“My selfishness has then an affinity with the 
heavens,” retorted Lord Orville; “ for woman is its 
centre of attraction, and I revolve around it.” 

“ But the bodies to which the philosopher al- 
ludes,” replied Forrester, “ revolve upon the centre 
of others to benefit — you to destroy them.” 

At this moment, the door of the library opened, 
and Emily herself, the object of this discussion, 
entered the room, with a book in her hand, as 
though for the purpose of changing a volume. She 
started at seeing Orville and Forrester, and would 
have retired, stammering some apology about ex- 
pecting to find the room unoccupied. Lord Or- 
ville, however, advanced towards her, and preventing 
her retreat, said, “ Nay, Miss Hartley, you must 
not leave us ; you are just come in time to thank 
your knight-errant, who like the hero of La Mancha, 
has been defending you against the dangers his own 
imagination has created.” 

Forrester, greatly agitated, attempted to stop Lord 
Orville, who continued, however, in spite of him — 

“ Oh, it would be mere selfishness — right earth, 
you know — to keep the arguments of your gallantry 
to myself, and to prevent their reaching that 
heavenly body they were intended to benefit. 
Here, Miss Hartley, has Forrester been combating 
the attentions which my heart and your own attrac- 
tions have induced me to pay you as my mother’s 
guest, with as much fury, and as little justice, as 
Don Quixote attacked the windmills, or the harm- 
less sheep.” 

“ Insidious coxcomb !” trembled on the lips of the 
agitated Forrester; but the presence of Emily re- 
strained him. 

“ Mr. Forrester,” exclaimed Emily, with height- 
ened color, and a haughty tone, “after what has 
passed ; after what I have also heard of your con- 
duct, you must be conscious that this interference 
with my name is officious, at least, to give no 
harsher term to it.” 

“ Oh, Miss Hartley,” replied Forrester, “ torture 
me not by expressions, as undeserved, as they are 
harsh and agonizing. I have been influenced, and 
Lord knows it, only by my wishes for your honor 
and happiness.” 


THE OXONIANS. 


70 


“ I can preserve them both, sir, without the 
assistance of Mr. Forrester/’ said Emily coldly. 

“ Heaven grant you may !” ejaculated her lover. 
“ The first I never doubted. It was my tender 
anxiety for the latter, that has called down your 
present censure on me.” 

“ As for you, my Lord,” turning to Lord Or- 
ville, his indignant feelings flashing from his eyes, 
“ your insidious baseness now renders a personal 
explanation necessary, and I shall seek it in a pro- 
per place,” 

“ Sir,” retorted Lord Orville, “ were any other 
name in question than that of Miss Hartley, I might, 
perhaps, make as haughty a reply to your remark 
as it deserves.” 

“ Oh, for heaven’s sake, my Lord !” cried Emily : 
but he continued : 

“But ill directed indeed, must that passion be 
which can make the object of its love the subject 
of a public dispute; and I despise the man whose 
arguments lie in a bullet, or whose word is sus- 
tained at the point of his sword.” 

“ What a just, what a noble sentiment! to pre- 
fer the real reputation of a woman to fantastic ideas 
of imaginary honor,” ejaculated Emily. 

Forrester, at hearing his own words thus turned 
against himself, could no longer restrain his indig- 
nation ; giving a glance of mingled fierceness and 
contempt at Lord Orville, he exclaimed, 

“ I feel, sir, that my truth is unable to cope with 
your cunning ; that was a part of your Lordship’s 
character I had yet to learn. Miss Hartley, I have 
never yet ventured to warn you against that cha- 
racter, because I thought there was nobility even 
about its errors. But I have been mistaken. Be- 
ware of him ; beware his talents ; beware his insi- 
dious attentions. I know that while the wand of 
the enchanter is upon you, I cannot break his spell; 
but truth shall wither up the envenomed flowers 
which hide the serpent from your view, ere his coil 
is so strongly woven round your heart, as to leave 
its poison there for ever.” 

And so saying, he quitted the room, startling 
Emily almost into conviction of his truth by his 
energy, and throwing even Lord Orville in some 
measure from the balance of his equanimity. 
“ ’Sdeath, this is not to be borne.” exclaimed Or- 
ville ; and making an attempt to follow him, he 
was detained by Emily. 

“ No, no, my Lord, follow him not. He speaks 
but in the intemperance of disappointment. Nay, 
I beseech you for heaven’s sake — for my sake — .” 

“ For your sake 1” said Orville, “ That is indeed 
a plea I know not how to resist. For your sake 
I could indeed bear much. But should he repeat 
this in the world, what will repay me for the scorn 
I must endure 1 Will she, for whose sake I con- 
sent to run the risk of it, repay me by her smiles 1 
Will her eye beam with kindness when that of the 
world shall be averted with scorn'!” 

“ Oh, my Lord, urge me not now,” entreated 
Emily ; “ I am unfits agitated ; let me retire ; leave 
me to myself, I beseech you ; yet promise that you 
will avoid all intercourse with Mr. Forrester.” 

“ I promise,” replied Lord Orville, “ and should 
we meet accidentally, will only tell him your anxie- 
ty for his safety.” 

“I am anxious for both,” rejoined Emily;' « and 
I am sure Lord Orville will not forget that my 


name may be compromised by any dispute of which 
I am the unfortunate occasion.” 

With this Lord Orville permitted her to retire, 
anxious to put in execution his attempt at an inter- 
view with his fair incognita ; whom from the cir- 
cumstances of Forrester’s having been seen enter- 
ing the house, he half suspected to be the ol>ject 
of some liaison of his rival’s ; so apt is the mind of 
one man to form a judgment of the actions of an- 
other from a recollection of his own. 

As for Emily, it was sometime before she could 
recover the agitation which this scene had occa- ^ 
sioned. Her mind was filled with doubts; her 
decision and her judgment perplexed. There was ' 
a flash of indignant truth in Forrester’s eye, 
and a brust of virtuous indignation in his 
parting speech, that almost carried conviction 
of his sincerity to her heart. She had known 
him too from her infancy ; could he so long i 
have played the hypocrite ? yet had she not 
heard by accident, and from a stranger, of conduct 
that proved him to be one ; and did not her own I 
vascillating conduct require that he should be so, 
to justify the change which had taken place in her 
feelings] Yet why was not Lord Orville more 
explicit; why did he confine his attention to ex- 
pressions of admiration ; to exclamations of plea- 
sure ; to covert hints of her powei^over him, with- 
out any declaration that could enable her to define 
his meaning or intention. Could he deceive her ] ! 

Here indeed was mortification, if not wretchedness ! 
Then arose that comparison between the person, 
manners, and talents of the rivals, which was al- 
ways so favorable to Orville ; and she gave her be- 
lief to the sincerity of him whom she wished to 
find sincere. 

Oh woman, why do you suffer your eyes to 
guide your judgment] why permit your heart 
to influence your reason ] why prefer the tinsel 
of modern accomplishment to the more intrinsic 
merit of a correct mind and a sound discretion ] , 

Yet, why ask these questions, which may be an- 
swered by the finale in our Church Service, “ as it ^ 
was in the beginning, is now, and ever will be.” 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

r, 

PATRONAGE. >; 

t 

There is scarcely any thing in life so painful in ^ 
the feeling, or so melancholy in the contemplation, 
as the affectation of high spirits and of gayety while . 
the heart is breaking beneath; as the forced smile 
of mirth, while the tear of misery is trembling in 
the eye; or the necessity for the assumption and 
appearance of careless hilarity, while the mind is 
writhing under disappointment and misfortune. 

This was precisely the situation of poor Langley. 

His mistaken notion, that he should at length 
attain the accomplishment of his views through 
some high connexion, drove him into society where 
he was sensible that his position was preserved 
only b}" the wit and spirit of his conversation. He 
was blind to the heartlessness of those persons who 


THE OXONIANS. 


71 


; welcompcl him only as long as he could conduce to 
their entertainment; and imagined himself to be 
1 making friends in those who only sought him as a 
i companion to season by his wit the pleasures of 
1 their table, to entertain the company by which it 
was surrounded, and to be cast off like one of their 
champaign bottles, as useless and worthless the 
moment that its exhilarating qualities were ex- 
hausted. 

He was too apt to take the cordial shakes of the 
hand with which he was greeted, as marks of real 
friendship, instead of the mere common greetings 
of society, bestowed alike on every one : and as 
i he had never yet been burthensome to his friends, 
he was still considered a good fellow, though a 
poor devil, by the men of fashion with whom he 
associated. 

Every body said, “ Poor Langley,” but nobody 
thought of relieving his poverty. All the gayety 
of Langley was only on the surface ; a convulsive 
6ob would frequently stop the laugh which accom- 
panied one of his own sallies, and when he had set 
the table in a roar, his own heart was breaking. 
The very scenes in which he^lived, the very society 
he frequented, the splendid banquets of which he 
partook, were all so many reproaches to him, when 
he thought of the situation of his wife and child, 
and of the actual penury of the position in which 
he was placed. 

Still Langley had not felt that which is perhaps 
the bitterest pang that unaccustomed poverty has 
to bear; that which is technically and heartlesslv 
called “ cutting.” He had never given his friends 
the privilege, the pleasure, or the pain of saying 
r?o, by asking any favors of them ; fbr it is a privi- 
lege, a pleasure, or a pain, according to the dispo- 
sition of the person who utters it; and the length 
of time which had elapsed without his having done 
this, had given even those, who had at first dreaded 
that their friendship might be called into active 
exertion by his application to them in his misfor- 
tunes, a confidence in his forbearance, which in- 
duced an increased cordiality on their part. Yet 
there was not one of them who was ignorant 
of his situation, and of the extreme reduction of 
his circumstances, and who were not wasting their 
influence, and bestowing their patronage, on far 
less deserving, though more obtrusive persons. 

By this conduct Langley had preserved his 
independence, but he had likewise increased his 
poverty, which at the time of his application to 
Orville was such, that it was only by the strictest 
economy that he had managed to make his di- 
minished finances meet the extra expenses ren- 
dered necessary by the birth of his child. The 
sum of money saved from the wreck of his former 
fortune was now nearly exhausted, and absolute 
want must have been his portion, unless some lucky 
change occurred. He was, however, buoyed up 
by the hopes he derived from Lord Orville’s liberal 
promises; and although he considered it exceed- 
ingly unlucky that his Lordship should be out 
daily just at the time of his call, he never deemed 
himself the victim of one of those “ not at homes,” 
with which Tadpole and a few others of his casual 
acquaintance were so continually greeted at the 
doors of the great. When they did meet. Lord 
Orville never allow^ed Langley the pain of remind- 
ing him of his promise, for he found it much the 


easiest method of getting rid of the question, by 
first alluding to it himself, and this he always did, 
by saying, “ Ah, Langley ! I have been about your 
business — every thing is en train — but patience 
is necessary, a little patience and we shall succeed.” 
Such a greeting as this was sure to stop any fur- 
ther question on the part of Langley ; and it was 
upon such a speech that he fed his hopes till the 
next meeting, w'hen he was sure to be greeted by 
another to the same effect. This w'as sufficient 
proof that Lord Orville bore his application in 
mind, and that was all that Langley could expect 
at present. He therefore went on in the same 
career of hoping, till “ hope deferred made his 
heart sick,” and he began to droop under his in- 
creasing and accumulating distresses. 

The few tradesmen, too, to whom he was in- 
debted, not knowing his residence, began to annoy 
him at his club; where, among the many three 
cornered and other elegant shaped billets of in* 
vitation, sealed with various devices of wax in dif- 
ferent colors, he now found some very ugly, long, 
square-looking epistles, dosed with large splashes 
of wafer, the contents of which made poor Lang- 
ley anything but content. They generally began, 

“Mr. Langley, sir, your account for 18 having 

so long remained unpaid, we shall be obliged by 
an immediate settlement, and remain your humble 
servants to command,” Humble servants'? In 
time Langley knew these letters by instinct, and 
generally thrust them unopened into his pocket, 
where they remained, till, in a fit of desparte cour- 
age, he would read and answer them by an apolo- 
getic epistle that obtained him a few weeks longer 
grace. Death and our creditors are always sure 
to find us in the long run, even though we should 
have no “ local habitation ” to which they can 
address themselves. 

Still Langley lived upon hope, concealed his 
poverty went on in the same career, kept up the 
same connexions, and was still the same pleasant 
companion which every where secured his welcome. 
But he became thin and pale; his cheek exhibited 
that hectic flush which betrays the want of health 
and peace of mind ; his eye grew dim, and his 
brow compressed with the cares which corroded his 
heart ; and he frequently left the society which 
his wit had rendered gay, to weep in the solitude 
of his own reflections. 

Some circumstances had likewise given him a 
new uneasiness with respect to his wife ; she had 
been absent several times, when he had accident- 
ally returned home during the day, without, as 
usual, accounting to him, by telling where she had 
been ; and once or twice, the maid had told him 
that a strange gentleman had inquired for her. 
Langley’s confidence in his wife was unbounded ; 
but he felt that his situation and pursuits had never 
permitted him to pay her the proper attentions of 
a husband, and that this peculiar position laid her 
open to misrepresentation, and perhaps, to insult ; 
and this, added to a naturally jealous disposition, 
where his affections were concerned, sometimes 
rendered him very uneasy. 

In the mean time, Langley, quite unconscious 
of any change in the sentiments of his patron, 
went on in the same way, and lived the same life ; 
only that his heart grew sicker every day with 
disappointed hope, and that his waking thought* 


72 


THE OXONIANS. 




every morning became still more melancholy and 
foreboding. 

His wife saw this, and prepared for the worst. 
It was in vain that Jjangley tried to keep up the 
same spirits at home that he exhibited abroad. 
There is nothing so quick-sighted as affection, par- 
ticularly the affection of a woman, and Mrs. Lang- 
ley saw the bitter feelings of disappointment that 
made him writhe under his assumed smile. He 
yet, nowever, continued to depend on Lord Or- 
ville’s almost daily promises; though at last he 
forebore to repeat them to his wife, upon whom 
they had long ceased to have any effect. She, 
however, did her best, not only to keep up her own 
spirits, but to keep her husband’s hopes alive ; and 
would not add to his uneasiness by telling him the 
pertinacity with which she had been watched, and 
the various insults she had received, though she 
little imagined that her husband’s patron and her 
persecutor were the same person. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

FURNISHED LODGINGS. 

From the moment that he had seen Mrs. Lang- 
ley, Lord Orville watched most assiduously for an 
opportunity of obtaining another interview; and 
having succeeded in meeting her twice or three 
times, the idea of her beauty had so increased 
upon, and influenced his imagination, that he de- 
termined, at all hazards, to attempt its possession. 
The modesty and dignity with which she had re- 
pressed his advances, and the total seclusion which 
she at length ado[)ted to avoid them, rather than tell 
her husband that which might involve him in addi- 
tional difficulty, and which she knew would dis- 
tress hini uselessly, only added additional impetus 
to his exertions. 

It is true that he was, in some measure, misled 
by the information that Tadpole had given him, 
into the idea that she was a companion and not a 
wife ; and his notion that a woman, who had once 
been frail, only required another temptation, and 
another opportunity, to repeat her frailty, gave 
him, in his own mind, every chance of suc- 
cess. 

Her retirement he attributed to affectation ; and 
the difficulties which she threw in his way, he 
considered only as so many acts to enhance the 
value of his prize. An habitual libertine has very 
i<x)se ideas of female virtue, and seldom believes in 
its existence. Orville, too, had found the power of 
gol<l over the female mind, not, perhaps, adminis- 
tered as a bribe to any thing but their vanities ! 
and he knew that more women are misled by 
vanity than by any other feeling. 

With these sentiments, Orville had little doubt 
of success. He therefore set to work to lay regu- 
lar siege to his fair incognita, or to her whom he 
knew only under the assumed name of Mrs. Ro- 
berts. 

Every body knows that lodging-house keepers 
m London are not the most immaculate people in 


the world. Like the Italian inn-keeper, they do 
not always insist upon seeing the marriage certifi- 
cate of the various couples who domicile under 
their roof. The punctual payment of the rent, 
and a convenient blindness to certain extra charges, 
with which they eke out their weekly bills, are tha 
principal ingredients of their notions of respectabi 
lity, and constitute, in their minds, a proper lodger. 
Mrs. Letsom, in whose house Langley had taken 
lodgings for his wife, was a thorough-bred woman 
of this class. She had a large portly person, with 
a fiery face, always ready for an obsequious smile, 
or a bullying frown, whichever would the best 
serve her purpose. Her bills were always deli- 
vered with such a determined air, that the unfor- 
tunate person against whose name Mrs. Letsom 
had put her £. s. d. saw that any thing like alter- 
cation would be useless, and any hope of abatement 
nugatory. The only thing that was seen of her 
husband, who was a little man, was his name 
upon a small brass plate in the low^er part of the 
door, and himself sneaking out at eight o’clock in 
the morning, and coming in with a single knoeV at 
nine o’clock in the evening; the intervening hours 
being spent in some counting-house, where he was 
happy to seek a refuge from the managing perse- 
cution of his better half, and to earn a weekly 
stipend of one pound one, with which he purchased 
her good-humor on a Saturday night, and secured 
himself a little peace on Sunday. It is true that 
Mr. Letsom’s name was on the parish books; but 
it was Mrs. Letsom that was all in all; she paid 
the rent, rates, and taxes ; she preferred her com- 
plaints against the negligence of watchmen and 
street-keepers, and was considered by her neigh- 
bors a very hard-working notable woman, and at 
the same time a very lucky one, as her lodgings 
were seldom vacant. 

When Mr. and Mrs. Langley first took her se- 
cond floor, under the name of Roberts, they appear- 
ed so “ vastly genteel,” to. use her own phrase, and 
paid down their earnest money so handsomely, that 
she inquired no farther. Their faces and their con- 
duct were sufficient letters of recommendation, and 
the punctuality with which all her demands were 
discharged, was in her mind the best evidence of 
their moral rectitude. The only thing which had 
ever displeased her, was the impossibility of treating 
them with her usual familiarity, and of being at all 
intimate with Mrs. Langley. 

With her first floor people she had seldom been 
admitted to, and, indeed, seldom sought any other 
intercourse than the payment of her bills, as she 
naturally considered them above her ; but, with her 
second floor she had generally been used to gossip, 
and sometimes take a cup of tea ; which had never 
been the case with the present lodgers, and this 
Mrs. Ijctsom held somewhat in dudgeon. 

We have seen, however, that poor Langley’s re- 
sources had been gradually diminishing, and his 
wife’s confinement from the weak stale of her health, 
had led him into such a variety of unanticipated 
expenses, that the rent, with Mr. Letsom’s etcete- 
ras, was not quite so punctually discharged as for- 
merly. At first Mrs. Letsom naturally supposed 
this might arise from accident, but when his want 
of punctuality had occurred two or three times, she 
began, in her own elegant phrase, “ to smell a rat,” 
and to think that all was not quite right She sud- 


THE OXONIANS. 


73 


I g ■ — — 

denly recollected that she had required no refer- 
ences; and, although the year and a half that they 
had lived under her roof they had conducted them- 
selves so quietl}’^ and respectably, that even the most 
fastidious of London landladies might have been sa- 
tisfied, yet during that period they had never asked 
her to “ so much as a cup of tea,” although they 
had no other visiters of any sort or kind. The lat- 
ter circumstance, which had heretofore been a mat- 
ter of congratulation to the scouring propensities of 
Mrs. Letsorn, since it made the Saturday’s scrub 
last the hmger, and go the farther, now struck her 
as remarkable : she recollected too, that Mrs. Ro- 
berts was a very pretty woman, and that Mr. Ro- 
berts scarcely ever spent any other part of his time, 
excepting the nights, in the house. All this be- 
came suddenly mighty suspicious, and the virtue 
of the good landlady was beginning to take the 
alarm, and her fears to be raised for the hitherto 
immaculate respectability of No. 3. 

It was about this period that, Orville’s emissaries 
having watched in vain for two or three days with- 
out catching even a glimpse of the object of their 
vigilance, either in the street, or at the window ; 
and, tired of the very little progress that had been 
made by his sapper and miner. Tadpole, and the 
very inefficient information he obtained through the 
same means, determined him to prosecute the ad- 
venture himself. 

Leaving his horses therefore in the square, that 
was in the vicinity of Langley’s domicile, for, in 
this metropolis, splendor is a very near neighbor to 
poverty, he soon arrived at the door, and ascertained 
that he was right, by the name of Letsorn, now 
almost effaced from the plate by the rubbing which 
it underwent every morning from the robust hands 
of Mrs. Letsom’s maid of all work. That lady, as 
she saw her “good name” thus gradually vanishing 
under the infiuence of scouring-paper, had once or 
twice spoken of purchasing a new plate ; but as she 
looked at the weakly state of her domestic partner, 
she bethought herself that the letters would last 
quite as long as the good man himself, and that 
she had therefore better wait, and get a new brass 
plate and a new husband together. 

Mrs. Letsorn was in the midst of her cogitations 
about her second floor lodgers, and in the act of 
slicing a round of toast for her first floor, when 
Lord Orville’s smart rap at the door almost caused 
her to drop the loaf, and to cut her fingers; or, as 
she pithily and elegantly expressed it, made her 
almost “ cut more than she could eat.” Thinking, 
however, that such a knock was of course to her 
first floor, she resumed her occupation. On the 
street door being opened. Lord Orville merely said, 

f “Any body at home! Oh, in the parlor; very 
well ; I’ll find my way ;” he passed the maid, who 
< was astonished at what she called his “ imperence,” 
till she found he was really a gentleman, and then 
she called it “ perliteness.” 

“ Betty, Betty, what is all that there noise 
aboutj]” roared out Mrs. Letsorn, at the top of her 
voice, when the parlor door was opened, and 
Orville entered. 

There was that in Lord Orville’s appearance 
which so evidently bore the impress of a gentleman, 
that there was no mistaking it; his person, man- 
ners, and movements required no adjuncts from 
dress to convince those whom he addressed that he 


was a man of rank and consequence. He wore 
those marks of aristocracy in the bearing of his 
whole person, which Lord Byron has said may^e 
discovered in the “ fingers’ ends.” 

The half familiar, half respeeful bow, with which 
he uttered, “ Mrs. Letsorn, I presume,” and the air 
with which he took off his hat, at once soothed the 
lady’s ire at the temporary bustle in her hall ; 
down went her voice from the discordant pitch it 
had assumed, to the sweetest and lowest note it 
could command ; down went the loaf, down went 
the knife, down went the tucked up corners of her 
gown, and down went Mrs. Letsorn herself to her 
lowest and best courtesy, as she said — 

“ Yes, sir ; very much at your service, sir. Pray 
be seated, sir.” 

“ Allow me to place you a chair, madam ;” said 
Lord Orville, as he handed one from the side of the 
room to the side of the fire ; while she officiously 
dusted and placed another opposite for his own 
occupation. 

“ Upon my word ! a nice, snug, compact, man- 
sion, and a very pleasant situation, my good Mrs. 
Letsorn,” said Lord Orville, looking out of the 
window at a dull, black, blank, dirty wall, which 
reared itself within a few feet, as the gable end of 
the chapel of ease to the parish ; “ not liable to be 
overlooked either.” 

“ Not at all, sir, except of a Sunday, during 
divine service, by the charity children. That’s the 
windy of their gallery,” said Mrs. Letsorn : “ To 
be sure, to make up for that, you can hear them 
sing; ay, and almost hear the parson preach too, 
without the trouble of going to church.” 

“ That must be remarkably convenient,” ob- 
served Orville. 

“ Oh, very convenient,” replied the landlady ; 
“ and then you can see every herring that comes, 
from all my upper windys, rain or shine, without 
budging a foot.” 

“ That is certainly very lively,” observed Lord 
Orville: “You let lodgings, I believe, Mrs. Let- 
soml” 

“ Yes sir, very much at your service ; and very 
sorry I am too, for your sake, as well as my own, 
that they are all full. There’s my first floor, quite 
genteel people — has a gig of their own — at least, I 
believe ’tis their own ; for it comes every Sunday, 
and it is always the same ; and that doesn’t look 
like a hir’d un, you know, sir — does it now ]” said 
Mrs. Letsorn, in a breath. 

“ Certainly not. I should think your judgment 
correct upon the subject of the gig in your first 
floor,” replied Lord Orville ; “ but your second 
floor, Mrs. Letsorn ?” 

“ Oh, for my second floor, if you would put up 
with that, I think I might be able to accommodate 
you in a week or two; for I was just a thinking 
that I should be obliged to give them people a 
notice to quit,” said the good landlady, adding 
another five shillings per week, in her imagination, 
to the already exorbitant rent produced by the two 
rooms and the closet, dignified with the name of 
dressing-room, which constituted the conveniences 
of the floor in question. 

“ It is not exactly about your lodgings, my good 
Mrs. Letsorn, but about your inmates, that I have 
taken this liberty of making your acquaintance. I 
wish to know somethii.g about your second-floor 


74 


THE OXONIANS. 


lo(]u:ers/’ said Orville, carefully watching Mrs. Let- 
soi^i’s countenance, to ascertain whether there was 
any ri.sk of olTeruling her, should he try to engage 
her in the promotion of his wishes. 

“Something about my second-floor lodgers*” 
repeated Mrs. Letsorn. 

“Yes; you have a remarkably pretty woman 
there, I think; and I am a little anxious to obtain 
some information respecting her — that is, if I can 
prevail upon my good Mrs. Letsorn to be as good- 
natured and kind, as her appearance bespeaks her 
to be,” pursued Lord Orville, still watching the 
landlady's countenance, which w^as now lighted up 
by a smile of knowing consciousness and cunning 
that soorj conviiiced him he might go any lengths 
he pleased with her. 

“ What, Mrs. Roberts'!” said she. 

“ The same,” replied Orville ; “ I confess that 
she has raised my curiosity.” 

During these few last questions Mrs. Letsorn had 
scanned the person of her visiter more particularly, 
and began to think him superior to any lodging 
that No. 3 could boast. His white hand flourished 
a whip, which, with his spurs attaches, bespoke 
him the master of a horse, if not horses; one of the 
fingers of the said white hand also displayed a 
diamond, that almost dazzled her as it glanced 
brightly in the reflection of the fire; and white 
pocket handkerchief, too, distributed such a perfume 
as had never before regaled the nostrils of Mrs. 
Letsorn, and which seemed, to her olfactory judg- 
ment, like the smell of a true gentleman; all these 
observations had their due effect upon the mind of 
th'e landlady, an effect that was not at all diminished 
by a person and features seldom surpassed in manly 
beauty. Seeing at once through the whole drift 
of his visit, she simperingly said, 

“ Well — you ra’al gentlemen are sich gentlemen 
for the ladies; where will you all go to '!” 

This sentence set Lord Orville quite at his ease 
with regard to any qualms he might have felt as to 
employing Mrs. Letsorn as a means of communica- 
tion. He soon knew quite as much of her lodgers 
as she did herself; and indeed a great deal more 
than she knew to any certainty. But the fact of 
the rent not being paid had made Mrs. Letsorn quite 
capable of suspecting any and every thing; and she 
argued from these premises, together with other 
circumstances, that most likely “Mrs. Roberts was 
not a lawfully married woman.” 

From the description which Mrs. Letsorn gave 
of Mr. Roberts, Lord Orville was soon convinced 
that it was not Forrester; although Tadpole had 
certainly seen him enter the house. It, however, 
tended rather to increase a suspicion that had once 
or twice crossed his mind, that Langley played him 
false, and was himself the cher ami of Mrs. Ro- 
berts; for one or two of his emissaries had seen 
somebody enter, whose description appeared to an- 
swer that of Langley. This, together with Lang- 
ley’s tenaciously claiming the performance of his 
promise to assist him, had determined Lord Orville, 
by some means, to prevent both his intrusion, or 
his importunity ; and he had this very morning 
adopted steps which he thought would effectually 
prevent both. Until within these very few days, 
Mrs. Letsorn averred that her lodger had no visit- 
ers ; though within that period, she had been in- 
quired for by several, and, among others, by an old 


gentleman, who seemed to know more of her, and 
“not much to her advantage,” as Mrs. Letsorn 
said, than even Mrs. Letsorn herself. 

From all this, Orville could not discover much; 
but he formed the greatest hopes of easy success 
from the circumstance of her poverty. — All, there- 
fore, that he requested of Mrs. Letsorn was, to con- 
trive an opportunity for his seeing her alone, and 
securing him from any interruption. 7’'his was 
readily promi.scd on the part of the obsequious land- 
lady, who, informing Lord Orville that her “first 
floor” was going to Covent Garden, and that the 
whole house would be clear in about an hour, ad- 
vised him to return at that time, when she would 
contrive that every body should be out of the way ; 
and, to use a technical phrase, “ no questions 
asked.” 

The douceur which Mi*s. Letsorn received for her 
compliance with Lord Orville’s wishes made her 
eyes glisten with pleasure ; and, as she obsequious- 
ly opened the door to her visiter, she simpered out 
something of “ Mrs. Roberts being a very happy 
woman.” 

On returning to her parlor she found that the 
handkerchief, the scent of which had been so grati- 
fying to her olfactory nerves, had been left behind. 
This, of course, became the immediate object of in- 
vestigation ; and the fineness of its texture, far be- 
yond even her own extravagance in the frills of Mr. 
L’s. best shirts, did not at all diminish her ideas of 
the consequence of her visiter. Mrs. Letsom’s im- 
agination, of course, soon appropriated this article 
to her own use, but in doing this the mark in the 
corner attracted her attention, and puzzled her not 
a little. It was an O. with what she called a flow- 
er-pot over it. Now, the meaning of this flower- 
pot was what she wished to find out ; for, never 
having seen such a thing before, her curiosity was 
raised, and to gratify it, away she posted to a neigh- 
bor, who was fashionable laundress, and whose 
knowledge of heraldry, derived from the tails of 
shirts, the corners of pocket-handkerchiefs, and 
such other portions of the linen of the nobility as 
are blazoned with their honors, either in permanent 
ink, or marking stich, enabled her to pronounce 
the said flower-pot to be neither more nor less than 
a coronet ; and that therefore, the handkerchief in 
question belonged to a lord — “ to a ra-al lord.” as 
Mrs. Letsorn emphatically said. 

This confirmation of her opinion that her visiter 
was somebody “ particular,” we may be sure did 
not diminish Mrs. Letsom’s impressment in his 
service. It is astonishing how vice is diminished 
in our ideas, and what a lenient form it assumes, 
and how much less vicious and seducing terms we 
give it, when the perpetrator is a man of rank. 

Mrs. Letsorn, therefore, hurried home ; only 
ejaculating, as she went along, “ Well, what a 
lucky w'ornan Mrs. Roberts is ! — but some persons 
are born with silver spoons in their mouths — 
though what a lord can see in her pale face, I 
can’t for the life of me imagine. However, that 
is nothing to me ; 

‘ People differ in taste, as in opinion ; 

Some like an apple, some an innion* ” 

And with this opposite and elegant quotation, 
the only one that Mrs. Lestom ever made in her 


75 


\ 

THE OXONIANS, 


life, she prepared to send every body out of the 
way, that the lord might have his interview free 
from interruption. 



CHAPTER XXVr. 

CONTRE-TEMPS. 

Paul Pry himself was scarcely a greater mar- 
plot than old Admiral Frankley, when he took any 
whim into his head upon the various affairs in 
wliich he thought it his privilege to interfere. As 
to Emily, Hartley, and Forrester, together with 
Lady Orville’s family, he considered them all 
quite as amenable to him as though they were his 
own children, or he their guardian. 

The union of Forrester with Emily had always 
been among his favorite projects; though he easily 
gave it up the moment he supposed an attachment 
to exist between that young lady and Lord Orville 
— to cross true love was in his idea a crime of no 
little magnitude. He had, how'ever, always con- 
ceived such a very high opinion of Forrester’s 
moral character and conduct, that he became quite 
incensed at learning, through the medium of Tad- 
pole’s communication, that he had been deceived; 
and he forthwith determined to sift the matter to 
the bottom, and expose the Joseph Surface who 
covered his libertinism with such a cloak of mo- 
rality. With this view he applied to Tadpole, 
who, too happy to oblige an inmate of Orville 
House, and particularly one so distinguished by 
the Countess as the Admiral, soon told him where 
the lady in question lived, although he kept the 
secret of his having discovered it by the direction 
of Lord Orville ; and, of course, concealed from 
his Lordship that he had given this information 
to the Admiral. Lord Orville himself had like- 
wise greatly aggravated the Admiral’s anger 
against Forrester ; and had done every thing 
to impress him with the truth of the result 
of Tadpole’s communication. The Admiral, 
therefore, determined to strike at the root of 
the evil, and to include the syren herself in his 
lecture ; for, among his other oddities, he had 
great ideas of his own powers of conversion ; and, 
in spite of his anger, from what he learned, as the 
result of his inquiries in the neighborhood, the 
lady in question was well worthy of their exertion. 
This became, in his opinion, still more necessary, 
from the circumstance of Forrester’s persisting in 
not understanding him ; and in denials of the truth 
of the Admiral’s accusation. 

To convict, therefore, from the lady’s own lips, 
was become necessary to the Admiral’s pertinacity. 
Yet with his notions of female decorum, it was 
some time before he could make up his mind to 
visit such a woman as he conceived this to be. 
What would his friends say if they discovered it] 
He should subject himself to the ridicule of the 
whole club; and perhaps furnish an anecdote for 
another Naval Sketch Book. He winced under 
these ideas, and the fears that they instilled into 
his mind ; and it was some time before he resolved 


on the step, which he at length took on the very 
day that Lord Orville had made his acquaintanro 
with Mrs. Letsom, and that she had agreed to 
assist him in obtaining an uninterrupted interview 
with her lodger. Her anxiety, how’ever, to discover 
more particulars concerning her visiter, through 
the medium of the handkerchief, had, as we have 
seen in the preceding chapter, induced her to quit 
her post to consult the heraldric knowledge of her 
neighbor, the laundress. It was during this period 
of her absence that Mrs. Langley, who had for 
some days been too much annoyed by the growing 
familiarity and impertinence, both of her landlady 
and the servant, to ask any thing at their hands, 
had taken advantage of her infant’s sleep, to go out 
into the immediate neighborhood to purchase some 
few necessaries; and just at the same time, the 
Admiral stole into the street, looking as sheepish 
and ashamed as though he was going to commit a 
larceny, and was afraid of detection. He did not 
know what sort of a character the house itself 
might bear, which was inhabited by a female of 
such habits; and was, therefore, naturally afraid to 
be seen knocking at the door. With this fear he 
passed it once or twice, and walked up and down 
the street with an assumed air of unconsciousness, 
purposely examining every house but the right one. 
At length, cautiously looking round, and ascertain- 
ing that there was no other passenger near, he 
seized the knocker, and gave a hurried and trem- 
bling rap at the door. The minute that must 
necessarily intervene between the time of this 
operation and the application being answered, 
seemed an age to the poor Admiral. He fidgetted 
about, looking first one side, and then the other, 
and stood at a little distance from the door, gazing 
at the Stilton cheeses in an adjoining shop, as 
though he was not waiting for its being opened. 
Under such circumstances to be obliged to knock a 
second time, and to kick one’s heels during tho 
pleasure of a lazy servant, is among the miseries 
of human life. The Admiral’s eyes absolutely 
twinkled with impatience, while he mentally uttered 
some few of his usual oaths; and his second rap 
not having been answered on the instant, he was 
actually thinking of a retreat, when the door 
opened and released him. He slipped in with a 
celerity that put him out of sight of any passer-by 
in a moment; and asking if Mrs. Roberts was 
within, received the reply of the sulky girl — “ Yes 
she’s at home — second floor.” Up went the Ad 
miral ; thinking within himself, the readiness with 
which the girl told him to mount to the lady’ 
apartment, to be a confirmation of the character of the 
house, and its inhabitants. Arrived on the landing 
the Admiral felt rather awkward ; and began ta 
cogitate as to his mode of addressing the lady, and 
as to the lecture he should give her for seducing 
his young friend from his allegiance. His second 
gentle tap having remained unanswered, he ven 
tured to open the door, and, seeing nobody, boldly 
entered the apartment. Here, heming very loudly, 
he trusted to bring the lady from one of the inner 
rooms, with which he supposed two doors he saw 
communicated. No person, however, appearing 
either on his repeated coughs, or on his tapping at 
the said two doors, he supposed the object of his 
visit to have gone out without the knowledge of 
the servant, and was thinking of retreating, when 


76 


THE OXONIANS. 


V 


the idea of the sensation he had experienced below, 
determined him rather to wait for the return of the 
lady, than have to run the ordeal of again standing 
in the street at the door of what he deemed a sus- 
picious house. 

He had now leisure to examine the apartment, 
which, so far from exhibiting those ill assorted 
luxuries which are generally found in the resi- 
dences of women of the description the Admiral 
supposed the occupier to be, was distinguished by 
nothing but its extraordinary neatness; while some 
needle-work, still lying on the work-table, gave 
evidence of a kind of industry not at all in con- 
sonance with the ideas he had formed. 

The only decoration which the apartment could 
boast was a picture in a superb frame over the 
chimney-piece. The gilding of this, which was 
much superior to any thing else in the room, was 
carefully papered up, while a green curtain help- 
ped to preserve the picture itself from the dust, 
and showed either the particular value set on it 
by the owner, or designated it to be a subject not 
exactly calculated for general exposition. Consi- 
dering the place he was in, this latter idea took 
possession of the Admiral’s mind, and he blushed 
at the supposed depravity which sanctioned such 
profanation of the art. Curiosity was, however, 
raised, and removing the curtain, instead of the 
Venus he expected, he beheld the portrait of a 
female, apparently about fifty years of age, wdiose 
feature gave indication of great former beauty, and 
much recent sorrow or sickness. There was some- 
thing in this portrait which rivetted the Admiral’s 
attention ; something that told him he had seen 
either the original, or the portrait, or something 
like it before. But when, or where, it was impos- 
sible for him to recollect. Still, however, the por- 
trait seemed to inspire him with an interest, for 
which he tried in vain to account; and he amused 
himself during the tedious interval of waiting, by 
endeavoring to bring to his remembrance some rea- 
son to which he might ascribe his interest in this 
picture. Beneath it, hung a small sketch of a boy, 
in a midshipman’s jacket, with the shirt collar 
open ; but this he only glanced at for a minute, as 
wearing the uniform of his own profession. It 
was the picture of the female that attracted his 
attention, and roused his curiosity. 

In the mean time, Mrs. Letsora, having derived 
fresh energy in the cause of Lord Orville, since 
the discovery that what she had thought to be a 
flower pot on the handkerchief, was in reality a 
coronet, began to perform her promise of prepar- 
ing to secure him an uninterrupted interview with 
her lodger, For this purpose she despatched her 
maid to some distance, in such a hurry, that the 
girl either had not time, or forgot to tell her mis- 
tress of the visit of the Admiral. The moment 
the girl was gone, Mrs. Letsom also ascertained 
that her “ First Floor” had departed ; for she al- 
ways distinguished her lodgers by the floor they 
occupied ; and to have heard her say, that her 
« Parlors” were gone to the play; the “First 
Floor” to Vauxhall, and her “Second Floor” 
gone out to drink tea; one might have imagined 
good Mrs. Letsom’s house to have been literally 
turned out of the window. The coast being thus 
clear, she half mounted the second flight of stairs, 
Aud hearing the Admiral moving about, she ima- 


gined Mrs Langley, as usual, at home with he 
infant, and accordingly betook herself to the parlor 
to await the arrival of her titled visiter; for sucll 
she now no longer doubted him to be. 

Lord Orville had been too long frustrated in his 
attempt to see his fliir incognita, and was too im- 
patient for the promised opportunity, not to be 
punctual, and precisely at the hour that Mrs. Let- 
som had designated as that at which her “ First 
Floor” was sure to have departed, he entered the 
street. It so happened, that Langley, moody and 
low-spirited, had resolved to give up his dinner- 
party, and return home to spend the evening with 
his wife; and entering the street at the same mo- 
ment, he literally ran against Lord Orville, close to 
the door of his own lodgings. 

The surprise at this rencounter was mutual, and 
extorted an exclamation from each of them. In 
Lord Orville’s mind, it confirmed his suspicions of 
Langley’s connexion with the lady, and thus a 
considerable quantity of anger was mingled with 
his wish to get rid him. On Langley’s part, the 
only sensation he experienced was the fear of his 
humble lodging being discovered, and he considered 
himself exceedingly lucky in not haying knocked 
at his door before he saw Lord Orville, and was 
almost afraid that his very consciousness would 
betray him. He seemed to think second floor was 
written in his face; and was casting about in his 
mind to discover some excuse for being in the street 
when Lord Orville, who was never at a loss, ex- 
claimed, 

“ My dear Langley ! how fortunate : I have 
literally hunted you to-day; I looked in at the club 
twice, hoping to find you. I have seen his Grace 

of , who desired to see you before five in 

Downing-street. I see it wants but ten minutes 
of that hour, so you had better make the best of 
your way ; should you be too late, go directly to 
the club, and wait there for me; I will come and 
take you to his private house.” 

Langley’s countenance brightened at this intelli- 
gence, and as Orville familiarly took his arm and 
hurried him out of the street, he was profuse in his 
expressions of gratitude. In the next street. Lord 
Orville said, “ But you wall walk faster without 
me, and may perhaps still be in time ; should you 
be too late, don’t move from the club till I come.” 

Away went Langley in the direction of Down- 
ing-street, while Lord Orville, by a circuitous route, 
again attained the door of No. 3, which was 
speedily opened by the obsequious Mrs. Letsom ; 
who, courtseying to the ground, whispered that all 
was safe, and preceded him to the first floor landing; 
when Orville, impatiently passing her, said aloud, 
“ Well, well, I’ll find my way, don’t trouble your- 
self,” proceeded to the second story. 

The Admiral, who was still engaged in contem- 
plating the portrait, having heard the knock at the 
door, and the steps ascending the stairs, had 
naturally enough imagined the lady to be coming, 
he therefore prepared accordingly ; but nothing 
could exceed his consternation when Lord Orville’s 
voice struck upon his ear. All the power of that 
young nobleman's ridicule at once occurred to his 
imagination, and all the horrors of the discovery ha 
had dreaded, stared him in the face with tenfold 
horrors. There being but one egress and entrance 
into the apartment, no opportunity of escape from 


THE OXONIANS. 


77 



I the threatened danger presented itself; concealment 
: was the only resource, and imagining that Lord 
Orville would immediately retire on finding the 
lady absent, he hastily opened one of the inner 
doors, and as hastily shutting, locking, and bolting 
it, tound himself concealed, to his increased con- 
sternation, in the lady’s bed-room. 

The first question that naturally occurred to the 
Admiral’s mind w’as, what could bring Lord Or- 
ville there; and this, in the simplicity of his heart, 
was answered, by the supposition that he was 
actuated by the same motives as himself; and he 
internally lauded Orville for so meritorious an 
intention. 

On discovering the apartment to be vacant, Or- 
ville, like the Admiral, had made an application to 
each of the inner doors, and not at all adding to the 
old gentleman’s tranquillity by so doing. Receiving 
no reply, he began to apprehend that the object of 
his pursuit must be in some other part of the house, 
and descended in search of the landlady to ascer- 
tain the fact. Mrs. Letsom, however, though very 
willing to oblige such a generous visiter, and to 
give him every facility in her power, had still an 
eye to her own safety ; and not being at ail certain 
in her own mind how Lord Orville might be re- 
ceived by her lodger, she determined to keep out 
of the way, so that if any scene of violence should 
-occur, she might at any rate plead ignorance, and 
have the excuse of absence. The moment, there- 
fore, that she had ushered Lord Orville to the second 
floor, she had quitted the house, leaving him as she 
imagined, “ a clear stage and fair play and thus, 
she expressed it, “ kept her own neck out of the 
noose, happen what would.” 

When Lord Orville found himself, as he ima- 
gined, quite alone in the house, he was at first 
rather puzzled as to his proceedings; but certain 
of Mrs. Letsom, he determined to return to the 
apartment up stairs, and wait the event. 

His return was no pleasure to the Admiral, who 
heard him impatiently pacing up and down the 
room, with no very enviable feelings. During the 
short absence of Lord Orville, the Admiral had 
found that he was not the sole occupant of the bed- 
room; for, concealed by the curtains, he had dis- 
covered a chubby boy sleeping in all the soundness 
of infant innocence. This added not a little to his 
perplexity, as should the little urchin awake, it was 
but natural that he should cry at the sight of a 
stranger, and the Admiral began to think how he 
should quiet him should such an event happen. 

Two or three times Lord Orville tried the lock 
of the door which led to the room in which the 
^ Admiral had taken refuge, to ascertain if it was 
g^really fastened. During these attempts the old 
^ gentlernan’s perturbation increased tenfold, and 
despairing at length of the departure of the in- 
he began to curse the inadvertence which 
O^had got him into a dilemma, from which he saw no 
Kchance of escaping without disagreeable conse- 
^quences. 

BK - length the street door was heard to open and 

^shut; and it was evident that somebody had let 
^themselves in ; footsteps were presently heard as- 
^cending the stairs, and Mrs. Langley entered the 
|«apartment, having admitted herself into the house 

the Bramah key which every lodger possessed. 
IfcLord Orville had placed himself in such a posi- 


tion that she had closed the door and entered the 
apartment without perceiving him, until she was 
too far advanced to retreat, as she certainly would 
have done, had she seen him in the first instance. 

On discovering him, she uttered a half shriek of 
mingled surprise and fear, and would have again 
attained the door, had not Lord Orville respectfully 
placed himself so that she could not gain it without 
passing him. 

‘‘Pardon my intrusion;” Lord Orville was com- 
mencing, when Mrs, Langley interrupted him with 
the question of “ How he had gained admittance to 
her appartment ]” in a voice rendered nearly inar- 
ticulate from agitation. She had recognised her 
persecutor, and, in addition to her fears of being 
alone with him, now added the dread of the con- 
sequences that might ensue should her husband re- 
turn. 

“ You cannot be ignorant that your own attrac- 
tions have induced my endeavours to obtain an in- 
terview, and my perseverance has at length crown- 
ed them with success. You must have been long 
aware how ardently this interview has been desired 
by me ; and though you have had the cruelty to 
deny me a voluntary meeting. I trust you will 
give me credit for the exertions which have thus 
procured me a pleasure I have so long solicited in 
vain.” 

“ I am aware, sir,” replied Mrs. Langley, “ of 
having been at various times insulted by your ad- 
dresses, and you cannot be ignorant of the manner 
in which they have been repulsed. Your intrusion 
here, sir, bespeaks a conduct which I am loath to 
characterise by the name it deserves.” 

“Nay, nay; this is being too severe. In the 
street, exposed to the public gaze — I could account 
for the coyness which repulsed me — but here, you 
may listen to me in safety.” 

I will listen to nothing, sir,” interrupted Mrs. 
Langley ; “ these are my apartments, and I desire 
the free occupation of them.” 

“It was my knowledge that they were yours 
that has caused my intrusion into them. That they 
are unworthy of you, will be your own fault in fu- 
ture, if ” 

Mrs. Langley again interrupted him, and assum- 
ing all the courage and calmness she could com- 
mand, she said, “ Sir, if I have hitherto confined 
my attempts at extricating myself from undeserved 
insult to request that you quit my apartments, it is 
because I am anxious to avoid any exposition that 
may be misinterpreted ; I — ” 

“ Nay, hear me, at any rate. Excuse me for 
saying, that indeed you must hear me. I find you 
here in poor apartments, quite unworthy of you. I 
know, from my inquiries, the situation in which 
you are placed, and I come to oflTer you to amelio- 
rate it ; nay, to make it splendid in comparison 
with what it is now.” 

“ What have I done, sir, to draw down this insult 
on me?” asked Mrs. Langley. “If any informa- 
tion you have received as to my situation can have 
induced it, your information has been false ; and I 
know not what right you had to make either my 
name or circumstances the subject of inquiry.” 

“ Will not my love, my admiration, plead my 
cuse — ” 

“ Hold, sir! insult me not by expressions, which, 
as [a wife, il is criminal for me to permit; and 


78 


THE OXONIANS. 


which, were it otherwise, would be as useless as 
they are displeasing to me.” 

“ Wife !” exclaimed Orville, in a tone of 
doubt. 

“ Yes, sir, and as such I entreat you, if you be a 
gentleman, to quit t! ese apartments, and avoid the 
chances of an encounter with rny husband.” 

“ Husband !” again repeated Orville, in the same 
tone : “ If you are a wife, you are at least a neglect- 
ed one — ” 

“ ^ I am !” exclaimed Mrs. Langley, with in- 
dignation : “ That I am a wife, let my indignation 
convince you is true. That I am a neglected one, 
let the ardent affection I bear a deserving husband, 
convince you is false. But even were it otherwise, 

I trust I should find as strong a cause for my pre- 
sent indignation in female virtue alone, as I now 
find while that is united with my husband’s love, 
and my contempt for you.” 

During this conversation, every word of which 
had been overheard by the Admiral, his eyes had 
been gradually opening to the deception which 
Lord Orville had practised upon him with regard 
to Forrester, and, trembling with indignation, he 
could scarcely restrain himself from bursting into 
the room, and exposing suth base hypocrisy as it 
deserved. With this feeling he almost forgot the 
awkward predicament in which he himself was 
placed ; but on the mention of the husband, he be- 
gan to feel that he had quite as much to dread 
from his indignation at appearances, as Orville had 
for his insulting intrusion. There was, however, 
no other remedy than to remain quietly until Lord 
Orville should retreat, which he had no doubt would 
soon be the case, from the reception he had met 
with, and then make the best apology that he could 
for his own situation. 

Lord Orville, however, with all his knowledge 
of the world, and misled, perhaps, by the reports 
that he had heard, wanted the tact to discriminate 
between the really virtuous indignation of the wo- 
man he was addressing, and that assumed anger 
which so many of the sex exhibit under similar cir- 
cumstances. He thefore, most pertinaciously con- 
tinued his addresses, until Mrs. Langley insisted on 
ais quitting the room instantly, or at all personal 
risk she threatened to raise the house. 

Lord Orville, whose passions had become the 
more inflamed by her opposition, and whose admi- 
ration of her beauty had been greatly increased 
during this interview, felt the futility of her threat, 
and telling her that any application to the bell would 
be useless, from his having contrived to get every 
body out of the way, seemed determined to make 
the most of the opportunity that Mrs. Letsom had 
afforded him. Recollecting the fortunate result of 
his perseverance upon former occasions, and still 
miscalculating the character he had to deal with, he 
approached Mrs. Langley. — Alarmed at her de- 
fenceless situation, she entreated him by everything 
that was honorable — by everything that was dear 
to him, to quit her: Lord Orville, however, seem- 
ed determined to persist, for there is none so 
unfeeling and merciless as the sensualist when 
his passions are inflamed. Perceiving his de- 
termination, she uttered a scream and exclaim- 
ed, “ Oh, my husband ! where are you in this 
momnnt of my peril ! have I none to rescue 
me'!” At these words the door of the bed-room 


was violently thrown open, and the Admiral, rush- 
ing forw'ard, stood between her and her insulter* 
with his amber-headed cane raised over the head of 
the latter. 

“ Yes ; you have me roared out the Admiral ; 

“ and in such a cause, the vigor of youth will again 
nerve my arm with a sufficient strength to break 
any scoundrel’s head that dares lay a finger on a de- 
fenceless woman.” 

Lord Orville and Mrs. Langley were equally 
astonished at the apparition of the Admiral ; but 
the latter uttered an ejaculation of thanks at his 
appearance, and instinctively clung to him for pro- 
tection. 

Orville in a moment saw all his mother’s schemes 
overturned, and the impossibility of averting the 
consequences of the discovery. Never, however, 
at a loss, he very soon recovered his sang froid; 
and, determining to brazen it out, either affected, 
or gave way to, a natural burst of laughter. 

^‘Fairly hunted out, I declare,” exclaimed he; 
and then, turning with a satirical air to Mrs. Lang- 
ley, who, in spite of her evident surprise, he sup- 
posed to have had a knowledge of the Admiral’s 
concealment, which was in his mind a confirma- 
tion of the truth of his suppositions with regard to 
her, he said, “ What, ma’am ! this is another hus- 
band ; perhaps you have one for every chamber. 
Upon my word. Admiral, I owe you an apology ; 
and had you but given me a hint of your presence, 
I should have made my retreat before.” 

“ Insulting man !” exclaimed Mrs. Langley. 

“ D — n it, my Lord, don’t put me in a pas- 
sion ; are you not ashamed to use rank and riches 
to insult virtuous poverty ? Nay, nay, don’t trem- 
ble so — he shan’t hurt you now. After all it 
seems as though we had fought and bled in the 
service of our country, only to permit these scape- 
graces to pursue their career of vice in peace and 
quietness.” 

“ Poor,” replied Lord Orville, “ because she 
would not listen to me. — Virtuous,” pursued he, 
with a sneer, “ because you were in that chamber. 
Madam, I take my leave, and shall call at some 
more convenient season to make my apologies, 
when so near neighbor may render it more conve- 
nient to reply as 1 wish. I beg your pardon. Ad- 
miral, for interrupting your amour: at your age it 
is unfair — but, rest assured, in my detail of this 
adventure, I shall not forget the prominent part 
played by the correct Admiral Frankley and so 
saying, with one of his most elegant bows, he quit- 
ted the apartment.” 

The whole of this was said with such an air of 
bravadoing nonchalance, and with so much self- 
possession, that Lord Orville was half down stairs, 
humming “ batli before the Admiral re- 

covered himself sufficiently to exclaim : 

What a d — d impudent fellow ! I beg your 
pardon for swearing,” said the Admiral; the first 
part in a passion, the last mechanically, as though 
he was speaking to Lady Orville, 

Admiral Frankley !” exclaimed Mrs. Langley, 
almost breathless with surprise, and in a voice 
which seemed to doubt her sense of hearing, “ did 
I hear right “I” 

“ I dare say you did — though dam me, if I think 
I did. What did the gentlemanly rascal say V* 

“ He called you Admiral Frankley, sir.” 


THE OXONIANS. 


79 


“Well; is lying so common that it becomes 
extraordinary when a man is called by his own 
name I 

Mrs. Langley almost sank to the ground with 
the agitation which this confirmation of* her having 
heard aright, occasioned. Leaning on the back 
of a chair for support, she gazed for a moment at 
the Admiral, and, bursting into tears, seemed ready 
to faint. 

“ Eh, what — why what’s the matter? D — n it, 
don’t faint ma’am — I don’t understand it — here, 
Mrs. Landlady ! Oh, curse these women, what 
the devil shall I do?” And, for want of any 
thing better, he began to fan Mrs. Langley with 
the broad-brimmed low-crowned hat which always 
formed a part of his costume, in spite of all Lady 
Orville’s efforts to humanize him, with one hand, 
while he slapped her back with no very great 
degree of gentleness with the other. 

“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Langley, sinking on her 
knees, in spite of all his efiorts to prevent her ; 
“ Oh, sir, — don’t you know me ?” 

“ Know you ! how should I ! — Pray, pray get 
up.” 

“ Does not your heart tell you who I am ?” 

uXS'oj — how the devil should it? — For God’s 
Bake get up — here’s a cursed scrape!” And the 
Admiral really for a moment began to think him- 
self the victim of some plan ; when Mrs. Langley 
pointed to the picture, nearly unable to speak. 

“ Well the picture ; I see it.” 

“ That, sir, was my mother — ” 

“ Well, I’ve no doubt it was;” and he was edg- 
ing towards the door. 

“ And your sister — ” 

“Eh !” exclaimed the Admiral, almost jumping 
with surprise, and his retrogade movement arrest- 
ed in a moment. “My sister! what, Fanny!” 
and, gazing intently on the picture, his stern fea- 
tures relaxed, and a tear started into his eye, as 
the gradual recognition of one who had once been 
so dear to him, stole over his mind. “ And so it 
is! — and you are — ” turning to Mrs. Langley. 

“ Her only child ; your niece. You will not 
throw me from you I” 

“ Throw you from me! Never. Come to my 
arms; for I’ve a choking something in my throat 
that is going to make a fool of me,” stammered out 
the Admiral; and, in a moment, the uncle and 
niece were locked in a close embrace. “ And the 
chubby-faced boy in the next room?” sobbed out 
the Admiral — 

“ Is mine.” 

“ And mine — ” repeated the Admiral. 

At this moment Lady Orville’s insinuations oc- 
curred to his memory ; and connecting themselves 
with the scene which had just passed, and the 
sentiments which had actuated his visit to Mrs. 
Letsom’s, began to rouse suspicions of his niece’s 
correctness, w'hich caused the heart of the Ad- 
miral to sink within him. Gently, therefore, put- 
ting Mrs. Langley away from him, he began to 
hem, and to cast about in his mind how he should 
satisfy himself. His niece looked at him uneasily 
and inquiringly. 

“Well, but Fanny — is your name Fanny? 
your mother’s was — I have heard strange tales. 
The father of your boy, where is he ? your — ” 

“ Oh, sir, if you have heard any thing against 


my husband, he has been belied. It was he who 
soothed my parents’ last moments, and who made 
them easy by promising me his protection. There 
is not a more affectionate heart, or a more ge- 
nerous soul in the world ; though misfortunes 
may ” 

“ D n his misfortunes. If he is a gentle- 
man and a man of honor ” 

“ That, indeed, he is both,” said Mrs. Langley, 
with energy ; “ and the gentlest and kindest of 
human beings.*” 

“Then forgive me my suspicions, and come again 
to my arms,” exclaimed the Admiral, while joy 
lighted up his rugged features; and he was in the 
act of again embracing his niece, when he found 
himself roughly seized by the shoulder, and com- 
pelled by a violent push to make various evolutions, 
not remarkable for their elegance, till his involun- 
tary spin was stopped by the corner of the room; 
and as his eyes began to resume their power of 
sight, after the giddiness which the sudden whirl 
had occasioned, he beheld Langley standing in 
a threatening attitude between him and his 
niece. 

After Langley had quitted Orville, some ircum- 
stances had occurred that had increased hi feelings 
of jealousy with regard to his wife ; nd these 
adding bitteimess to his disappointmep he deter- 
mined to return home and seek some 'explanation. 
The Admiral’s and Mrs. Langley’s agitation had 
been too great for them to hear tb^ street door open. 
Thus Langley had burst in i pon them unawares, 
and had acted upon the first impulse of the mo- 
ment, when he saw a otranger, as he thought, in 
such close contact with his wife. 

“ Why, Langley ! what the devil? the < gentlest 
of human beings,’ indeed !” 

“ Admiral Frankley !” exclaimed Langley ; 
though without any diminution of his indigna- 
tion — “I am surprised that a man of your age — ” 

“Should spin so like a humming-top,” inter- 
rupted the Admiral. “ And so am I, cursedly 
surprised.” 

“How dare you, sir, intrude into my apart- 
ments?” 

“ Oh, my dearest Langley, this is my uncle,” 
said Mrs. Langley. 

“Your uncle?” 

“Yes; whose name you would never even let 
me mention to you.” 

“ My dearest Langley ! why, where is Mr. 
Roberts, then?” inquired the Admiral, now quite 
bewildered. 

Satisfactory explanations were now given, and 
the Admiral was rejoiced beyond measure that his 
niece should have chosen one for her husband 
whom he had been so much inclined to love as 
Langley. 

The grand-nephew was now introduced ; and by 
his smiles seemed to participate in the joy of his 
parents. 

It was determined that none should yet be made 
acquainted with the discovery that had taken place. 
The Admiral, as usual, had a plan of his own, 
which had just suggested itself to his mind, and he 
was determined to put it in execution. He, there- 
fore, quickly took his leave of Mrs. Langley and 
the child with a kiss, and of Langley with a hearty 
shake of the hand ; leaving them both happier 


80 


THE OXONIANS. 


than they had been since their marriage, while he 
went to prepare them a more suitable residence. 




CHAPTER XXVII. 

PARENTAL FEARS. 

Both Lady Emily’s and Hartley’s parental fears 
had been excited, not,onIy by the hints which they 
received from various correspondents, but also by 
the changed style of Emily’s own letters, and by 
the very little communication that their son kept 
up with the Grove. Forrester’s manner, too, since 
his return, had been far from satisfactory, and his 
total silence, unless very closely questioned, on the 
subject of either Emily or her brother, had tended 
greatly to augment Lady Emily’s anxiety; and this 
had )^etermined Lady Emily and Hartley to go im- 
nledia^ely to town ; both mentally blaming them- 
selves 1 *r having resigned so sacred a charge as 
that of a laughter, even for a season, to any other 
hands tha their own. Mr. Hartley, too, had re- 
ceived a pri ate letter from Lady Orville, in which 
that Lady hoped to forward her schemes by detail- 
ing her suspicions of young Hartley’s liaison with 
one whom she designated as “ some worthless 
being.” The histoiy of his intrigue with Caroline 
Dormer she had learn^ 1 from Lord Orville; and 
attributing the little influence of Lady Sophia’s 
charms to the ascendency of this passion, she 
thought she might break it off, and make character 
at the same time, by putting Mr. Hartley on his 
guard. 

In the mean time, the Admiral had escaped 
Lord Orville’s bantering by presenting Mrs. Lang- 
ley to the Countess as his niece, and the wife of 
one of her friends; and by this act, and the active 
measures he instantly adopted to establish them 
sufficiently proclaimed his intentions with regard 
to their future welfare. 

The Countess, in despite of the vexation of her 
heart, received Mrs. Langley with apparent kind- 
ness, and congratulated Langley on the revival of 
his fortunes, while in secret she bitterly reproached 
her son with the imprudence which had led to 
such a discovery. 

Orville himself, with all his effrontery, was over- 
come with confusion by such an unexpected re- 
sult; while Emily shuddered at the precipice upon 
which she had stood ; and, the delusion once re- 
moved, she was astonished as well as ashamed at 
the weakness by which she had been misled, and 
the ease with which she had been deceived. 

The moment the first discovery of Lord Orville’s 
falsehood was made, mask after mask dropped off ; 
all the actions of the Orville family stood before 
her mental perception in their true light, and she 
hailed the arrival of her mother as that of her 
guardian angel; and throwing herself in her 
arms, burst into tears, and entreated never again 
to quit her protecting superintendence. As to 
F orrester, she did not dare to ask after him. 
Lady Emily saw in her daughter’s agitation that 
some great revolution had taken place in her 


feelings, but kindly forbearing any inquiries, only 
soothed her, and could only hope that her protect 
ing influence had not been withdrawn long enough 
to produce any lasting evil. 

With Lady Orville, the kindness of Lady Emi 
ly’s nature rendered it impossible for her to find 
any fault; and, withdrawing her daughter from 
her protection, imagined her much more to be 
pitied than blamed ; so artfully had the Countess 
woven her own story of all the events which had 
taken place, and so successfully had she exerted 
all those blandishments of which she was such a 
perfect mistress. 

By these means, Lady Orville imagined she 
still held a thread that would yet in time tend at 
any rate to the union of Hartley and Lady So^ 
phia ; although the expose of Lord Orville’s affair 
with Mrs. Langley, had, she perceived, forever pre- 
cluded all hope of his marriage with Emily. 

Although the anxiety of Mr. and Lady Emily 
Hartley was in a great measure allayed by again 
having their daughter under their own protec. 
tion ; that which they experienced for their son 
had considerably increased by finding him the 
victim of a nervous fever, accompanied by delirium 
and other alarming symptoms. Nor was this 
anxiety at all relieved by the information derived 
from his medical attendants, that it was more a 
disease of the mind than the body. He had been 
what his servant called “ ailing for some time,” 
and from the best tempered and easiest master in 
the world, had latterly become irritable and cap- 
tious. Beyond this the faithful attendant disclosed 
nothing ; for although he was perfectly aware of 
what he called his master’s “ love affair,” he na- 
turally enough concluded that could be nothing 
to the old gentleman, or to Lady Emily. 

The fact was, that Hartley could not be an un- 
feeling seducer. That which Orville and his coirf- 
panions would have triumphed in, and laughed at, 
preyed upon his heart with ceaseless remorse. 
The very beauty which had been his apology be- 
came now his reproach, and the more he saw of 
the innocence and rectitude of Caroline’s mind, th« 
more bitter became his pain at the thought that for 
him alone had she sinned. In spite, too, of her 
assumed spirits, and her attempts to amuse him by 
her music and conversation, he could perceive the 
increasing paleness and thinness of her cheek. He 
could discover the traces of tears in her eyes, and 
all those symptoms of secret unhappiness, every 
one of which was a bitter though silent reproach to 
himself. He saw that the happiness of her youth 
was blighted in the bud ; and that the very pleasure 
which she derived in his society (^ihe only pleasure 
left to her in life) was imbittered by her remorse. 
And she bore all this so meekly, so resignedly, that 
it had more effect upon his heart than if she had 
given way to open tears and reproaches. 

Then, too, the recollection of her father; of his 
confidence in and kindness to him ; and the old 
attachment that had existed between Mr. Dormer 
and his own father; all added bitterness to his 
feelings. 

There was but one way that he could remedy 
the evil done to Caroline, and that was by marrying 
her: and to this, in spite of bis arguments, he felt 
a repugnance for which he himself could scarcely 
account. Her beauty he acknowledged ; he was 


THE OXONIANS. 


81 


satisfied with the rectitude of her mind and princi- 
ples, in spite of her weakness with regard to him- 
self; her accomplishments and education were 
really such as would never have disgraced any 
situation ; he knew that although no express verbal 
promise of marriage had ever been given, yet he 
w^as aware that every action, and every conversa- 
tion, had tended to impress her mind with the con- 
viction that it was his intention to marry her, and 
he was sensible that this was due to her as an act 
of justice. 

Yet how could he introduce her to his family as 
his wife, who had been his mistress 7 how could he 
himself endure this reflection 1 So unjust is man 
under circumstances of this nature, that he permits 
his own act to influence his decisions against his 
victim; and is the first to preclude, by his own 
sentiments, the only path by which a virtuous 
woman may again enter society, without reflecting 
that it has been|himself alone that has rendered her 
thus unfit to bear the title of his wife. 

Independently, however, of all this. Hartley 
began to find that his own affection was not of 
such a lasting nature as he at first imagined it to 
be; it had never been founded upon that basis 
which is the only security for the continuance of 
an attachment. Caroline had been the first woman 
for whom he had ever experienced anything resem- 
bling love, and he was too young to perceive that 
he was more attracted by her beauty than by those 
mental qualities which he was delighted to acknow- 
ledge, and which he was willing to believe had 
more to do with his attachment than they really 
had. Deceived himself by his passion, he had the 
more easily deceived Caroline into a belief of the 
permanency of his feelings; but had he ever re- 
flected upon the ease with which a few months of 
dissipation had driven her from his memory, he 
would have been sensible that this was not one of 
those passions that give a color to a man’s exis- 
tence. 

Caroline herself could scarcely have been more 
unhappy at this discovery or the true state of his 
feelings, had she known it, than Hartley himself. 
It made his seduction of her appear a thousand 
times more heartless in his eyes, than it had ever 
done before, and robbed her of that for which she 
had sacrificed so much. 

Every interview, however, convinced him of the 
truth of his surmises, as well as carried firmer con- 
viction of the real excellence of her he had thus 
wantonly sacrificed to a delusive and temporary 
passion; while every day and hour also convinced 
him of the sincerity of her love for him. 

The chance she had, too, of soon becoming a mo- 
ther, did not allay his anxieties either for her or for 
himself. 

All these circumstances preyed upon the mind 
of Hartley, and rendered him careless and unmind- 
ful of every thing else. His former associates were 
deserted ; he went to no parties ; he passed his 
whole time either in bitter reflections in the solitude 
of his chamber; in attempts to shake off their effects 
by violent exercise ; or in the society of Caroline, 
the pleasure of which was embittered by her in- 
creasing illness and his own remorse. 

It was these contending emotions that had so 
preyed upon Hartley’s mind, that they at length 
affected his constitution, and produced the fever, to 


the influence of which he had at length been com- 
pelled to succumb on the very day that Mr. Hartley 
and Lady Emily arrived in town. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

A MISTRESS. 

We all know the public penalties attached to 
the title which is placed at the head of this chaptey. 
Every body is aware of that exclusion from respec- 
table female society which it entails, and of that 
contempt in which all who bear it are held by those 
whose good fortune or good principles have preserv- 
ed them from the same kind )f obloquy. But few, 
perhaps, are aware of the bitterness of those feel- 
ings, and of those heart-burnings which its unfortu- 
nate possessor endures in private; few know the 
scalding tears of shame, the deep sighs of repentance, 
that are shed and uttered in secret, or are sensible 
of that shrinking, even from themselves, which cha- 
racterizes the hours of their solitude. These are 
far bitterer punishments to a sensitive mind, than all 
the unfeeling taunts of an unpitying world. 
These are penalties which the lap.se from virtue 
entails upon the transgression of a far severer nature 
than any of those public ones which merely excludes 
them from society ; since these exclude them from 
the society of their own thoughts, or render these 
thoughts such bitter accusers that they are happy 
to fly wherever they can find a relief from them. 
Oppressed by reflections such as these, and musing 
over those days of her innocence and happiness 
gone never to return, Caroline Dormer sat at the 
casement of one of those pretty little cottages with 
which the outskirts of the metropolis abound, and 
which, by commanding rather an extensive view 
of the road, gave her the earliest sight of Hartley 
as he either rode or drove to the pleasant and 
comfortable domicile which he had provided for 
her. 

From the period of that excursion which had 
been so fatal to the future prospects of Caroline, 
she no longer thought it necessary to make Fanny 
Thompson the perpetual accompaniment of her in- 
terviews with her lover. But although she had 
not sufficient resolution to resist the influences of 
her love, and the importunities of Hartley, she 
drooped under the struggle between her principles 
and her passion. Her occupation became not only 
tasteless but disgusting to her, and she shrank from 
the glances of her companions as though her secret 
were written on her forehead ; and shuddered at 
their merriment as though their jocund laugh was 
raised in derision of herself. 

With these feelings and sentiments it w'as no 
wonder that she at length yielded to Hartley’s 
entreaties, and consented to leave a situation be- 
come so irksome to her, for the purpose of living 
under his protection, until some future period 
should be more propitious to their mutual wishes. 
Thus ambiguously did Hartley still picture thos« 
future intentions which were yet unknown to him- 
self. 


82 


THE OXONIANS. 


For this purpose Hartley took a little cottage in 
the suburbs, situated in the midst of a neat though 
small garden, and tastefully fitted it up with every 
thing that he thought could contribute to her com- 
fort and convenience. Caroline valued this only 
as an instance of his affection ; every thing else 
was indifferent to her ; w'hile her utmost exertions 
were used to make the house as pleasant as possi- 
ble to Hartley, when circumstances permitted him 
to make it his home. He would have had a regu- 
lar establishment, and had actually purchased a 
plain carriage with a pair of grays for her use ; but 
these she peremptorily declined. She would have 
shrunk with horror, at thus blazoning her situation 
to the world, and at the appearance of enjoying 
luxuries as the reward of her transgression. 

Her own wants were few, and to these she con- 
tracted her personal expenses; and persuaded Hart- 
ley to permit her to o nfine her household to tw'o 
female servants, w'ho t ith her assistance and taste 
kept the cottage in a style that never led him to 
regret the superior splendor of those establishments 
which he quitted for its enjoyment. Caroline had 
but one pleasure left her in the world, and this was 
the society of her lover. During his visits, which 
were now daily, since he made the cottage^ more 
his home than any other place, she struggled to 
appear cheerful, and though Hartley could not but 
perceive the increasing paleness of her cheek, and 
the perceptible decline of her health, she never mur- 
mured a complaint, but still smiled sweetly and 
affectionately, still betrayed a heart and soul en- 
tirely devoted to himself; and still exerted herself 
to entertain him with her music and her con- 
versation. 

Sometimes he thought that the perfect solitude 
in which she lived must injure her health, but no 
persuasion could induce her to quit her retreat; 
no entreaty induce her to partake of any amuse- 
ment. From the moment she had been his she 
had avoided being seen with him in any public 
place, and had confined herself entirely to her own 
house. 

Small as it was, she thought the little domain 
quite wnde enough for her shame, which she would 
have shrunk from exhibiting beyond its limited 
precincts. 

But though Caroline thus contrived to be tolera- 
bly cheerful in his presence. Hartley was little 
aware of the manner in which her time was spent 
during his absence. He knew not of the hours 
spent in bitter tears, and still bitterer reflections ; 
the sleepless nights of agonizing repentance, or of 
the mornings to which the bright sun gave no 
cheerfulness for her. She generally sat at the 
window of the small drawing-room before-men- 
tioned, because there she could see the last of him 
on his departure, and obtain the earliest intimation 
of his return. Here she continued to pass the 
weary hours of his absence in preparations for 
that event which, under other circumstances, 
would have conferred happiness ; but which in her 
present situation only produced tears of still bit- 
terer repentance at the prospect of giving life to a 
being whose birth must be stigmatized by the dis- 
grace and transgression of its parents. 

So painfully conscious was she of the position in 
which she was placed that she never rang the bell 
for the servants that she did not blush and almost 


tremble at their presence, while she uttered every 
request with the fear that some mark of their dis- 
respect might be shown in their answers or tneir 
conduct. 

Poor Caroline ! how much more would she have 
suffered had she been aware of the change that was 
gradually, and in spite of himself, working in the 
mind of her lover; in whose heart we have seen 
that passion was rapidly subsiding into a mingled 
sentiment of friendship, pity, and esteem. It is 
true that as his passion subsided, his sense of the 
injustice he had done Caroline became stronger, 
and Hartley was a man quite as capable of reme- 
dying the wrong he had done, from a sense of 
justice, as from a continuance of his love. He 
saw, however, the certain misery he should entail 
upon himself in a wife who no longer inspired the 
warmest fpclings of his heart; and for whom he 
felt merely pity and esteem. He knew also the 
blow such a marriage would give to his parents, 
and dreaded their unhappiness more perhaps than 
.their anger. We have seen that this struggle in 
his mind had produced a fever, under the effects of 
which Hartley was laboring at the arrival of his 
family in town. 

This illness had, for the first time, kept Hartley 
from the cottage of Caroline, and it was the second 
day of his absence, that she was anxiously watch- 
ing at the window for the usual hour of his 
return. 

A hurried note of the evening before had ap- 
prized her of what he called a mere temporary 
indisposition, but gave no intimation of the possi- 
bility of its continuance. The whole of the present 
morning had passed over without any farther com- 
munication, and she of course expected him at the 
time he usually visited her. 

'Fhat hour had, however, long since passed, and 
her anxiety was increasing to such a degree that 
she had half formed the determination of going to 
town to ascertain the extent of his illness, when a 
carriage appeared approaching the cottage. 

At the first sight of a close carriage, she had 
scarcely an idea that it could be Hartley ; but as 
it came nearer she recognised his livery, and 
merely supposing that he was not well enough to 
ride or drive as usual, her heart beat wdth plea- 
sure at his return. Her eye glanced rapidly round 
the apartment, to see that every thing w’as arranged 
as he generally liked it; and she rang the bell that 
the carriage might not be kept waiting a moment 
at the gates. She did not dare follow her inclina- 
tions, and rush to the hall to receive him, because 
she was too much ashamed of her feelings to ven- 
ture the exhibition of them before her servants. 

So overjoyed was she at his return, which was 
becoming almost unexpected, that she did not ob- 
serve the absence of his usual greeting wdien he 
first came in sight of the window at which he 
knew she always watched for his coming. 

Another minute elapsed, steps were heard as- 
cending the stairs. The smile of welcome was 
spreading its cheerful influence over her counte- 
nance, and lighting up her sad features with plea- 
sure, when the door w'as opened by the maid- 
servant, and instead of her lover she ben eld a 
stern-looking gentleman of fifty, who seemed to 
regard her with any thing but a look of kind- 
ness. 


THE OXONIANS. 


83 


As the door had opened, she had started towards 
it to hasten the desired meeting, even by the thou- 
sandth part of a second ; a period indefinable and 
linfelt in the common circumstances of life, but 
which is an hour in the “ Calendar of Love 
stopping, however, in the midst of her career, she 
stood in an attitude of mingled terror and surprise 
at the appearance of a stranger. The first thought 
that crossed her mind, which in her excited state 
generally jumps at once to the worst conclusions, 
was that her lover was dead : and she breathed 
the name of “ Hartley” in a tone of imploring 
interrogatory that expressed the intenseness of her 
anxiety. 

“ My name is Hartley, madam,” said the stran- 
ger, “ and I am the father of the misguided young 
man whom you expected.” 

Caroline looked fora moment in his countenance, 
in the stern features of which she could trace some 
faint resemblance to the more youthful lineaments 
of her lover ; then hiding her blushing face with 
her hands, she sunk overpowered with shame on 
the nearest seat, and, sobbing convulsively, Mr. 
Hartley perceived the tears forcing themselves 
through her fingers. 

Misled by Lady Orville’s misrepresentations, Mr. 
Hartley had come in search of Caroline avowedly 
to reproach her with the seduction of his son, and 
to break off the connexion for ever. 

When, however, he saw her extreme youth, and 
the unaffected shame and distress pictured in her 
countenance and manner, he perceived at once that 
Lady Orville had been mistaken, and began to ap- 
prehend his son more in fault than he had been led 
to suppose. One so young, and apparently so de- 
voted and artless, could never have been the se- 
ducer; and the father’s heart felt a pang at being 
compelled to force his son to an act of injustice, 
out of mere justice to his family. 

In spite of all her attempts to restrain them, Ca- 
roline’s sobs were at first so convulsive that Mr. 
Hartley was compelled to soothe where he had in 
tended to reproach ; but as she became more calm, 
and the first ebullition of her feelings began to sub- 
, side, he resumed his tone of sternness, as though 
he was fearful of giving her the hope which he 
came to destroy ; for he now clearly perceived she 
was no hackneyed follower in the paths of vice, 
U’ and that she was most probably the misled instead 
; of the rnisleader ; the betrayed instead of the be- 
trayer. 

But Mr. Hartley took a very different course to 
the one he had at first intended. He represented 
C- the situation in which he found her, and enlarged 
on the present and future disgrace of such a con- 
nexion. To this exordium she could only answer by 
her sobs and blushes, till, roused by something that 
struck her ear with its severity, she exclaimed in 
agony : — 

“ Oh, true ! true ! but who reduced me to this 1 
who but the son of him who is reproaching mol” 

' Mr. Hartley was silent for a moment, and then 
pursued, “ Think not, madam, my son shall es- 
cape ” 

These words roused pain of another sort in the 
mind of Caroline, and she interrupted him by ex- 
claiming, “Oh, reproach not him, the fault was 
mine, the crime was mine, I ought to have with- 
drawn myself, I ought not to have encouraged ” 


and here her tears interrupted what, she meant to 
be a defence of her lover. Hartley’s feelings were 
affected, but summ.oning his resolution he again 
presented the injury w'hich the continuance of such 
a connexion must be to both of them, and those 
prospects of his son which it must inevitably 
blight. 

Caroline looked forward to her own blighted 
prospects, but saying nothing of them, nor even al- 
luding to the still greater injury which she had 
sustained, and must sustain, throughout the future 
years of her existence, she summoned all her cou- 
rage to her aid, and, with as firm a voice as she 
could command, “ Think not, sir, that anything 
shall arise from a degraded being like myself that 
shall ever stand in the way of your son’s welfare 
and prospects. I thank you for painting my situa- 
tion in its true light; I will not deny that I have 
felt this before, but you, sir, have made me feel it 
more keenly ; you have torn away the veil of delu- 
sion which has till this moment hung over my 
senses, and which has hitherto enabled me to find 
an apology for vice and degradation in the excess 
of my affection, and I thank you for it. A life of 
repentance shall, in some measure, atone for my 
past errors. And rest assured, sir, the peace of 
Mr. Hartley or his family shall never be endanger- 
ed in future by the degraded and unhappy Caroline 
Dormer.” 

“ Dormer!” exclaimed Mr. Hartley, “Good God, 
the name of my old friend and tutor — Who are 
you?” 

“ His child — his only child,” sobbed out Caro- 
line, as she again sunk almost fainting on the sofa, 
and gave way to all the grief which this mention 
of her father had occasioned. 

Mr. Hartley was staggered, the daughter of his 
earliest and most respected friend, from whom he 
himself had derived his first principles of morality, 
seduced and ruined by his son. He walked up and 
down the room in a state of great agitation. Pity — 
justice — were beginning to prevail, when the 
worldly father stopped their progress in his heart; 
and engendered the idea of compromising between 
his sense of what was right and just and his family 
pride. 

“ Miss Dormer,” said he, kindly, and he took her 
hand, “ Miss Dormer, forgive me ; pardon any 
harshness of which I may have been guilty, and 
believe me that it arose from being misled as to the 
circumstances •” 

“ Oh, sir, treat me not thus,” said Caroline, in- 
terrupting him, “ I can bear your reproaches, but I 
cannot — cannot bear your kindness. Go, sir, to 
your son, make your mind easy, I will never see 
him more ; enough unhappiness has already, I per- 
ceive, been caused by me; let it in future be con- 
fined to her whose conduct has deserved it.” 

“No,” replied Mr. Hartley, “we part not thus; 
the unexpected occurrences of this interview have 
made it necessary that we should meet again. The 
welfare of my son, the happiness of his mother, 
the ” and he would have said “ the respect- 

ability of his family,” but the ill-timed sentence 
closed ere it was uttered, and he finished by saying, 
“every thing, both for your sake and his, requires 
that you should not see each other again. Keep 
firm in this virtuous resolution, and alK the protec- 
tion that Lady Emily and myself can f;fford shall 


84 


THE OXONIANS. 


be yours, and every thing on our part done to 
redeem the past, and to restore tranquillity and* 
happiness to the future/’ 

The word ‘‘ happiness” was repeated by Caroline 
mechanically; but she repulsed the desire she had 
to say that it had fled from her for ever. 

Her resolution was already fixed, and this gave 
her a greater air of coolness than she really pos- 
sesvsed, and enabled her to take leave of Mr. Hartley 
with a tranquillity she did not feel. < 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

SEPARATION-. 

On Mr. Hartley’s return he found his son some- 
what better, and by this time his worldly principles 
with regard to his establishment in life had so far 
overcome the temporary suspension which they 
had sufiered by the appearance and distress of 
Caroline, that he thought the sooner her removal 
and a decided separation was eflTected the better. 

Unwilling, however, again to encounter one 
who had already so much wrought upon his heart, 
and fearing the increase of her influence in a se- 
cond interview, he determined not to risk its effects. 
Sending, therefore, for his confidential man of busi- 
ness, he desired arrangements to be carried into 
immediate effect to render Caroline independent; 
and, enclosing a five hundred pound note as the pay- 
ment of her first year’s annuity, in advance, in a 
letter couched in such terms as he thought most 
likely to soothe and console her, and still hold her 
in the same determination of not again seeing his 
son, he trusted its delivery to his agent ; giving 
him directions to clear up every expense, and to 
give her any aid she might require in removing, 
and confirming his son’s gift of all that the cottage 
contained. 

The man of business was fortunately, a man 
gifted with much of the milk of human kindness, 
and performed his mission as tenderly as possible, 
indeed, so much so, that Caroline was induced 
to request that he would be the medium of the 
only farther communication she had to make to 
Mr. Hartley. 

To this he of course agreed, and she therefore 
appointed the next day at noon for his next visit, 
and for the commencement of her removal. 

All this was perfectly satisfactory to Mr. Hart- 
ley, and the less he had to fear from her, the 
higher Caroline rose in his estimation, and the 
more he pitied her fate, and condemned the con- 
duct of his son. 

The man of business was punctual to his ap- 
pointment at the cottage but was surprised to 
learn from the servants that Caroline had quitted 
it that morning in a hackney-coach. The pre- 
vious evening she had discharged every bill that 
was owing in the neighborhood, and that morn- 
ing, before her departure, had paid the servants 
their wages, and directed that they should at- 
tend to any orders that they might receive from 
him. She took with her merely her portman- 


teaux, in which her wardrobe was pack(Hl, and evi- 
dently equipped for travelling, had departed aa 
early as seven o’clock in the morning 

In the charge of the servants she had left a 
letter for the man of business, and a packet ad- 
dressed to Mr. Hartley, which she begged his 
agent would take charge of, and deliver into his 
own hands. Hurrying back to town with the 
intelligence of her departure, he immediately de- 
livered the packet intrusted to his care, hoping it 
might lead to some satisfactory elucidation as to 
the place of her retreat. In this, however, he was 
disappointed. Mr. Hartley, on opening the first 
packet, was surprised at seeing his bank note 
returned, with the following letter: — 

“Sir, 

“ In returning the enclosed mark of your bounty, 
and in declining to profit by your favorable inten- 
tions for the future, I beg you will not believe 
me to be actuated either by ingratitude or by any 
feeling of pride. To such a sentiment one fallen 
as I am must for the future be a stranger. But I 
cannot accept that which I must look upon as the 
wages of my transgression ; nor be bribed, even in 
appearance, into that step which I know and feel 
to be right, and which I would adopt, even were it 
more painful than it is, when I see that it is for 
the benefit of your son, and for the happiness of 
his family. 

“ I have been weak, sir ; I have been wicked ; 
but I trust not irreclaimably so. I know my error 
to be beyond redemption in this world, but I have 
been educated with hopes that travel beyond it. 
This education, w'hich should have preserved me 
from error, I feel only renders me more guilty. 
Suffice it for you, sir, that your son from hence- 
forth is free from me — we never can meet again. 
This is all the assurance on my part that you can 
wish, all that you have a right to expect; and as 
I wish not to be thought by any part of uis family 
the base thing you were led to suppose me, all I 
have to entreat of you, sir, is to think as leniently 
as your principles will admit of the errors of 
“Yours, most respectfully, 

“Caroline Dormer.” 

“P. S. The accompanying packet contains 
ornaments, forced upon me by the generosity of 
your son ; and which I now respectfully beg you 
to return.” 

“Noble girl!” exclaimed Mr. Hartley, as he 
perused this letter ; “ she does indeed deserve a 
better fate, and we must find out her retreat, and 
provide for her in spite of herself.” 

Caroline had, however, taken such secure steps 
to prevent this discovery, that all the inquiries they 
made proved fruitless : and he was obliged to 
resign the hope for the present. 

In the meantime, the good constitution of Hart- 
ley successfully combatted the influence of the 
fever, and he was rapidly approaching convales- 
cence ; when, taking the opportunity of being left 
alone with his own man, he inquired after Caro- 
line. 

His servant, with a rueful countenance, was at 
first rather shy of answering the questions put to 
him by his master; but Hartley, perceiving some- 
thing mysterious about his manner of replying, 


THE OXONIANS. 


85 


pressed him so closely, that he divulged all he 
knew on the subject; and, drawing a letter from 
his pocket, which he had kept there the last three 
days, and which he did not think it quite necessary 
to give to the old gentleman while there was a 
chance of his young master’s recovery, he delivered 
it to Hartley, who immediately recognised Caro- 
line’s hand-writing; and. desiring his servant to 
see that no one interrupted him, hastily broke the 
seal, and read as follows : — 


I 


Hartley, we have parted never to meet again ; 
and, believe me, the pang that I know you will feel 
at this, adds severity and bitterness to my own. I 
intended to have accomplished this act, so neces- 
sary to your future welfare, without writing, but I 
find the task too great for me. I must say fare- 
well — I should go mad were I entirely to confine 
my feelings wdthin my own breast.” Here agita- 
tion seemed for a moment to have stopped the 
writer, and the words w’ere blotted wdth her tears— 
Why am I so weak"? Have I not a thousand 
timos said that your happiness and welfare were 
my only wish ] and shall I hesitate ensuring them, 
when I only am to be the sacrifice] No, no; I 
will try to be more worthy of the good opinion I 
know you entertain for me, in spite- of all. Oh, 
how foolish have I been to imagine any union 
founded in guilt could be lasting ! Oh, Hartley ! 
I should have been innocent still but for you — 
have still been worthy of you, but for your own act ; 
but I do not reproach you — I — I was to blame ; 
my own self-confidence, my pride in my own 
strength, betrayed me. Yet, if you knew all I 
have suffered since ! How could I expect you 
should continue to love me, while I loathed myself? 
How could I dare think for a moment that any 
thing could induce you to raise such a guilty thing 
to the honorable title of your wife? No, no; it 
never could have been. And Hartley, if I know 
myself; if I know my feelings for you : I love you 
and your honor too well to wish that you should 
ever have called her a bride whose former corvluct 
could have brought a blush into the cheek of 
yourself and your family. How could I have 
ever looked your virtuous mother and sister in the 
face! But I am awakened from my persumptuous 
dream. I know myself; I know my guilt ; I know 
its penalty — attempt not to seek me ; it will be 
useless. I shall be far, far distant ; but of this let 
me assure you, that I shall be safe — there is one 
who will still protect me for my father’s sake ; and 
those sorrows which I have heaped upon myself, I 
must learn to endure, Hartley, I do not desire 
you to think of me kindly, because I know you 
will. I know you love me too well to bear' this 
parting without the pang that I would have spared 
you; but you have brilliant prospects still before 
you, and you wili soon forget in other feelings, and 
in other pursuits, the pains which I know this se- 
.paration will inflict. It is man’s nature to do so — 
5why are we not of the same mould? But a wo- 
man’s HEART never forgets where it has once loved. 
|Parewell, Hartley, dear Hartley! In after life, 
^TOmetimes cast a thought back upon your poor 
^girl — ” Here again the paper was blotted with her 
^tiears, as though the whole tenderness and anguish 
^iof her soul had been called forth by the word 
“farewell” — “I dare write no more, though I 


could write forever. Should I, in my retreat, read 
or hear of your future prosperity and homns, none 
will rejoice in them more than your devoted, though 
guilty, 

“ Caroline.” 

The persual of this letter produced another par- 
oxism of fever in Hartley, and for several days 
again was his life despaired of. 

In the meantime, his father, both by himself 
and his agents, took every means to discover Caro- 
line’s retreat; but all in vain, she had so success- 
fully secured herself from pursuit, that he was at 
length compelled to resign all hope of finding her. 
Several times the appalling idea of her suicide came 
over the mind of Mr. Hartley; but that step was 
so inconsistent with the method with which she 
had arranged her departure, and the removal of 
her wardrobe, as well as with the tendency of her 
letter, that he gladly Relieved his mind from the 
weight of such a suspicion. He therefore gave up 
all farther attempts, and could only hope that at 
some future period he might discover her, and in 
some measure atone for the injury which she had 
received from his family. 

Even Mr. Hartley imagined there were other 
reparations for such an injury than that of mar- 
riage ; but this is the common opinion of men, ay, 
and of some portion of the other sex too, upon 
this subject. 

Gold is put into the scald against a woman’s feel- 
ings ; competence in worldly affairs against a bro- 
ken heart ; and the compensation is deemed equi- 
valent. Perhaps this sentiment is right in a 
country where the loss of a husband’s honor is 
compensated by pecuniary damages, and money 
made the penalty for matrimonial infidelity. But 
the optimist says, “ Whatever is, is best !” and the 
ergo comes of course. 

It is a woman who suffers most under separations 
of this sort. Like a bruised reed, her vigor is 
blighted to its stem. She does not sink it is true ; 
but she only withers weaker and weaker, till the 
blast lays her prostrate on the earth. Upon a 
man the action is different ; he feels it severely at 
first; maddens with his disappointment; reasons, 
and recovers. 

Thus it was with Hartley. Caroline’s loss had 
recalled all his first feelings to his heart, or rather 
the recollection of them to his mind ; and had his 
father’s pursuit been successful, there is little doubt 
but he would have done her that justice which 
could alone repair her injuries. But as convales- 
cence increased, and his hope of finding her di- 
minished, we are sorry to say there came a feeling 
almost of relief to his mind, that she had by an 
act of her own put that out of his power, which 
he dreaded more than he wished. 

Oh man ! to think that a woman, who, 

had she been 

In heaven, oonld have lent him her eternity, * 

should be thus coldly treated ; thus easily forgot- 
ten ; or thus slightly lamented ! 

There arc two grand recipes for all kinds of sor- 
rows — occupation and change of scene. 

To unite these two, it was determined that Hart- 
ley should at once proceed to the Continent, and 


86 


THE OXONIANS. 


1 

V 


there spend two or three years, previously to en- 1 
gaging in that public life to which his station I 
in society called him. As it is our intention to 
accompany him a part of the w'ay on his tour, we 
must even see, or let our readers see, the state in 
which we leave our dramatist personae in Eng- 
land. 

Emily returned with her parents to her dear 
little apartments and flower garden at the Grove, 
like a child heartily sick of the world which had 
disappointed her; heartily ashamed of the weak- 
ness she had betrayed ; and still trembling at the 
danger she had escaped, of becoming the wife of a 
libertine and a hypocrite. There she avoided all 
society, and particularly that of Forrester; gave 
her young mind uj) to deeper reflection than had 
ever yet engaged it; and laid down a little course 
of penitence for her “ Follies of a Season.” 

Lady Orville, with her family, retired for the 
summer to an old family seat, where solitude was 
rendered tolerable by the society of a few of her 
otld associates, and by those who can carry ombre 
and ecarte into the country. Here she lamented 
over those projects which had been disappointed ; 
reflected over old schemes, and imagined new. 

Langley w'as at the height of his happiness, 
only regretting that his prosperity was not derived 
from his own exertions. He determined, however, 
at once to use his wife’s fortune in such a manner 
as to double it; resolved to embark on a grand 
scale in schemes of commerce and finance, and 
was already in his own opinion a second Roths- 
child. .'\s though he was doomed, however, to 
disappointment, the Admiral, in one of his pas- 
sions at the delay of his lawyers, which prevented 
his making his niece independent, dropped down 
dead in a fit of apoplexy, with his will, in favor of 
Langley and his wife, unsigned, in his pocket. 

A week had not elapsed before there appeared 
fifty claimants on the estate of the deceased Admi- 
ral. Bills and cross bills are filed ; injunctions 
were moved for and granted ; and Langley, instead 
of an easy and comfortable fortune, found himself 
involved in the almost interminable intricacies of 
Chancery, into which court all the assets were 
paid, with the comfortable assurance from his soli- 
citor that in about twenty years some termination 
might be put to the friendly suits that were insti- 
tuted to put the Admiral’s property into possession 
of the rightful proprietor. 

Lascelles went on in his old career, till between 

Newmarket, Doncaster, Epsom, C ’s, and 

the Mellon, he found that he was perpetually com- 
pelled to have recourse to old Langley, who had 
inherited the fortune that poor Langley had con- 
sidered his own, and to pay 16 per cent, in spite 
of the sermon against usury, which Vaux actually 
preached at his induction to his living. 

Before departing tor the continent. Hartley wrote 
the following letter to his friend Strictland. 

“I begin to think, my dear Strictland, that you 
were right! and from my uncircumscribed liberty of 
the great world, to envy you the limited precincts 
of your rooms at Oxford. I have lived in the world 
but one season, and during that short period, have 
tried and been disappointed in every thing. Friends 
have proved heartless; pleasure produced remorse; 
passion made inroads on my health and happiness; 


1 those who were all smiles, have been deceitful; 

I and every profession has had its origin in mv fi)r- 
tune and expectations. I am now quitting Eng- 
land, disgusted with the world, and were I to esti- 
mate my own powers and inclinations, I am only 
fit for La Trappe; since my feelings, hopes, and 
expectations are dead. ‘ ’Tis a vile world, my 
masters ;’ and so it has proved to one, who is never- 
theless, as ever, yours, 

“ Francis Hartley.” 

The course of post which seems to run on as 
unerringly as the course of time, brought the fol- 
lowing note from Strictland ; 

‘‘ My rear Hartley, 

“ Depend on it the world is as much better than 
you now describe it to be, as it is worse than you 
so fondly imagined it eight months ago. Look 
through all that has passed during this, to you, 
eventful season : and tracing how much of your 
unhappiness you have made for yourself, you will 
acquit the world of, at least, one half of the delin- 
quencies which you attach to it at present. 

Let the past have its proper influence on the 
future, and you may still be as rationally happy as 
the imperfections of our nature will allow. 

^ Yours, ever, 

“ Charles Strictland.” 


%■ 


CHAPTER XXX. 

SECOND LOVE. 

There are twm faults which mankind are per- 
petually finding with time — the one that he flies ^ 
too swiftly and leaves no leisure for enjoyment; 
the other that he lags on his road and gives \veari- | 
ness to every passing hour by the slowness of his i 
progress. This is one of the multitude of con- i 
traries by which human wishes are characterized^ f 
With the novelist, time must fly or stand still al m 
the author’s pleasure ; and we must now not only I 
trespass upon the reader’s imagination to suppose J 
many months to have elapsed since the closing of % 
the last chapter ; but also to allow us to crowd the 4 
history of a couple of years into the present. f 

It was nearly a year after the events related in 
the preceding chapter, that Hartley was on his way vt 
from Rome to Naples. Paris had held out her 
dissipations and pleasures in vain, to tempt his stay 4 
in that gay metropolis ; but Hartley was tired of f 
gayety, and thought himself divorced forever from 5 
every thought of pleasure. Switzerland, wdth its « 
scenery was more suited to the present tempera^ « 
ment of his mind ; and it was amid the solitude of * 
the mighty Alps, that he gave himself up to reflec- ^ 
tions on his past life, and became a better man and 
more worthy of his fortunes and existence, from 
their effects upon his mind and heart. It was here 
that he saw the wickedness of having sacrificed the p 
happiness of a fellow-being to a heartless pursuit ; 
and ruined the fame and the hopes of another, 
merely for a sensual and selfish gratification. I 


THE OXONIANS. 


87 


Uninfluenced by pernicious example, he called up 
the worthier part of himsi lf into existence, and felt 
that he was born for something better than the 
mere gratification of his passions. He recalled all 
the earlier princi{)les instilled into his mind by his 
mother; he saw his late conduct in the heinous 
light in which it deserved to be considered, and his 
heart became purified as it bled at the recollection 
of the fate in which he had involved an innocent 
and injured being. What were ail the pleasures 
he had derived from his short- lived intercourse with 
Carolirie, in comparison with the pains he ex- 
perienced in his repentance] And if his feelings 
were thus severe, what, thought he, must be hers 
j w^ho had sacrificed her all : What must be her 

I sensation to look back upon a blighted name, and 

, forward to a life of dishonor] The uncertainty, 
too, of her fate added to the bitterness of his present 
thoughts. 

During the period passed in Switzerland, all the 
better sentiments of his youth regained their ascen- 
dancy in the mind of Hartley ; he saw the heart- 
lessness of the people by whom he had been sur- 
rounded, he blushed to have been so easily led to 
follow in courses which he despised, and he made 
resolutions for his future conduct, by which he 
hoped to redeem the errors of the past. Who is 
there, not totally hardened, that has not these 
periods of repentance; and when these feelings 
come upon a mind and heart not yet hackneyed 
in the w'ays of vice, their influence is generally 
beneficial. 

His passions softened down by these months of 
silent thought, and his mind elevated by the con- 
templation of the sublime scenery of the x-Mps — for 
nothing is more conducive to virtuous feelings than 
the admiration of the sublime works of the Creator 
as they appear in these mountainous solitudes — 
Hartley, on re-entering active life, beheld the world 
in a different point of view. It was no longer a 
mere career of heartless pleasure ; no longer a 
course of dissipated pursuits, or a series of trifles 
and follies — but an active business and a succession 
of arduous duties, the performance of which was 
rendered more imperative by the high station and 
advantages with which he was born. 

With his mind in this state he traversed the 
greatest part of Italy, and by the enjoyment of his 
classical recollections, and by a contemplation of 
the works of art which abound in that land of paint- 
ing, poetry, and music, he gradually brought his 
feehngs back to that tone which rendered existence 
desirable. He travelled, not merely delighted to 
? roam over the surface of the Peninsula, where 
ffiinature and art, as if in rivalry, have assembled their 
Ik choicest treasures — but he searched beneath the 
Rsoil, and found there matters of deeper and sadder 
^'interest — monuments of glory vanished, of domin- 
^ ion forgotten — vestiges of the lost arts of Etruria 
y^and Greece, mingled confusedly with the records 
of Roman and Gothic grandeur. 

Hartley had, however, some difficulty in the 
enjoyment of the reflections which these thoughts 
engendered clea' of his countrymen, who infest 
every little town in the Peninsula with their coteries, 
and carry London, with its customs into Italy; 
emulating each other in their entertainments as 
much within the walls of the Eternal City, as in 
Grosvenor square or St. James’s, Indeed, many 


o-f them seemed to have come to Rome for no other 
purpose than to give dinners and soirees ; and the 
only art seemed to study was, whose palazzo should 
be the most crowded. 

Hartley was too well known about town, not to 
be known to at least half of the fashionable Zingari 
in Rome, and was therefore glad to quit the city as 
soon as he had seen all that was worthy of notice. 
He felt, however, that there was food for reflection 
for years instead of days in the ruins of a city so 
pregnant with the history of human grandeur and 
of human decadence; but the associations inspired 
by these objects, were destroyed by meeting the 
same faces that he had encountered the preceding 
season in a London drawing-room or at a London 
dinner-table. 

One circumstance detained him in Rome some 
days longer than he intended, though he would not 
own its influence even to himself; for he had de- 
termined in his own mind that woman should in 
future be indifferent to him. Hartley was passion- 
ately fond of music, and to indulge this taste he 
would frequently at vespers stroll into a convent 
in themeighborhood of his apartments, which was 
notorious for the excellent manner in which this 
service was performed. One evening he was struck 
by the notes of a powerful voice, which rose above 
the others in harmony and sweetness, so distinctly, 
that he could easily perceive the singer to be a 
young female within the grating, ranged among 
the novices, but without being clad in their cos- 
tume. So absorbed was she in her occupation, 
that her veil had been suffered to fall on one side, 
discovering features remarkable for beauty, which 
was now heightened by the expression of devotion 
w'ith which her large black eyes were raised to the 
altar. Hartley gazed on this fair creature till the 
service was finished and the devotees dispersed, 
but unable to shake off the impression which her 
beauty had created, and the curiosity excited by 
her appearance, he contrived to make some inqui- 
ries of the porteress the next day, when he found 
that she had been merely placed in the convent for 
a few nights during the absence of her guardian, 
who was a friend of the lady abbess, and with, 
whom she had that very morning taken her de- 
parture, but whether she was still in Rome his 
informer could not ascertain. Hardily able to ac- 
count for the impression which this bedutiful stran- 
ger had made upon him, he lingered in Rome, 
frequenting every public place in the hope of 
again seeing her. His attempts were however in 
vain ; and at length ashamed of what appeared to 
him a weakness unworthy of him, he determined 
to drive her from his recollection and pursue his 
journey. 

Quitting Rome therefore by the Porta de S. Lo- 
renzo, he pursued his journey leisurely, and soon 
crossing the Ponte della Solfaterra, again began to 
enjoy in the solitude of his own thoughts, the 
associations connected with the country through 
which he was passing. The supposed sites of the 
Tusculan villa of Cicero, and of the Sabine farm 
of Horace, by turns engaged his attention. The 
field, too, celebrated by the history of the Horatii 
and Curatii called up the glories of ancient Rome 
to his imagination, which was not likely to be 
banished by the sight of the Pomptine Marshes or 
the x^ppian way, over which his britchka was roll- 


88 


THE OXONIANS. 


ing. Nor was his eye less delighted with the 
landscape that presented itself to his view, than 
his mind had been with the historical associations 
which it recalled. The Promontory of Circe tow- 
ering on the one side, and the glittering rock of 
Anxur on the other, while the Volscian mountains 
sweeping in a hold semicircle from north to south 
closed tlie prospect, proved altogether a landscape 
well worthy the pencil of a Claude ; while the pow- 
ers of Salvator might have peopled with banditti 
the deep shadows of the extensive forests, which 
enclose the lakes bordering the coast, and which 
extend with little interruption from Ostia to the 
promontory of Circe. 

It was a lovely evening in the height of an 
Italian summer, that Hartley was wrapt in the 
enjoyment of this beautiful scene. Every thing 
was quiet around him; the blue and unclouded 
sky* warm with the refulgence of a setting sun, 
which gilded the deep and varying color of the 
landscape — the tumuli and ruins, glittering in the 
beams, or throwing a shadow on the sides of the 
mountain — all invited him to contemplation, and 
induced him to stop his carriage and to walk 
ap the acclivity, wliich it was^ now gently as- 
cending. 

While indulging in these contemplations, a 
travelling cavalcade, consisting of two carriages, 
with a courier and several servants, appeared in 
sight. 7’he equipages w'ere evidently English, and 
as they arrived at the foot of the hill which Hart- 
ley was slowly ascending, they stopped, and the 
traveller alighted apparently with the same inten- 
tion. 

Hartley had stopped to catch a glimpse at the 
ancient towns of Cora, Sezza, and Piperno, like 
serial palaces shining in contrast with the brown, 
rugged rock that supports them, wlien the traveller 
arrived at the spot where he stood. On his first 
appearance Hartley had some difficulty in deter- 
mining whether his elegant stranger, for elegant he 
certainly was, was an Englishman or a foreigner; 
but as he gracefully saluted him in his native lan- 
guage all doubt of his country was removed by his 
accent. 

“ I see, sir, you are enjoying this delicious 
scenery, and most probably recalling all the recol- 
lections connected with the interesting spots by 
which we are surrounded. I trust I do not inter- 
rupt your reflections; but I am not one of those 
Englishmen who can pass my countrymen in the 
solitude of a foreign land without recognition, how- 
ever I may be inclined to cut them when they con- 
gregate, and contrive to turn an Italian town into 
an English watering place,” said the stranger. 

“ Not at all,” replied Hartley, “ I was indeed 
indulging in the classical associations with which 
this spot is so pregnant, recalling the times of Ro- 
man virtue to my imagination, and the greatness 
of the arts by which this scenery has been cele- 
brated.” 

“Virtue!” exclaimed the stranger; “Roman 
Virtue! and to what did it lead but corruption 1 
In what did their greatness end but in their de- 
struction 1 And after all, what else did it deserve 1 
What prompted the actions you admire but their 
thirst of power? — what gave them that which you 
call virtue, but a vile ambition'* Yet, as you say, 
the spot is pregnant with classical recollections. 


There stands Setia celebrated by Martial for its 
wines ; — 

Quae paludes delicata promptinas 
Ex arce clivi spectat uva Setini ; 

it is a pity that the grapes should have lost their 
flavor. The worst thing that Nero did was to spoil 
the wine, by carrying his famous canal across the 
Vale of Amyclae. But water never did wine any 
good ! There runs the Amasenus too, as deep and 
rapid as when Metabus reached its banks — 

Amasenus abundans 

Spumabit ripis. 

And there rises Anxur with its steep cliffs, which 
seem marching into the sea — ‘superbus Anxur, ^ as 
Martial calls it ; and there the colonades of the 
temples of Jupiter and Apollo, 

Arcesque superbi Anxuris, 

as Statius describes them.” 

There was a degree of levity mingled with these 
observations, which betrayed the carelessness with 
which the stranger viewed the scenes which he was 
describing ; at the same time that a tide of classic 
recollection seemed to rush upon his mind, which 
ought almost to have rendered them sacred. 

They now agreed to mount their saddle-horses 
and ride a little in advance of the carriages, and the 
stranger recovering himself from 'a temporary melan- 
choly, again delighted Hartley by his conversation; 
although his remarks had certainly a tendency to 
destroy anything like the existence of virtue in 
human nature. He pointed out Mount Csecubus, 
celebrated by Horace; the Tormise, the theatre of 
the great disaster of Ulysses; Prochyta, and 
towering 

Inarime, Jovis imperils importa Typbaeo. 

The mausoleum of Munatius, the Tormian villa, 
and the supposed tomb of Cicero, with all the 
other mementoes of ancient lore with which the 
Appian way is crowded, by turns engaged their 
attention, till they arrived in the defiles of Mount 
Massicus, which communicate with tho.se of the 
Collicula, a mountain covered with forests. From 
these defiles they emerged by a road cut through 
the rock, and stopped in wonder as the plains of 
Campania, bordered by the Appenines, spread be- 
fore them. The craggy point of Ischia towered to 
the sky on one side, while Vesuvius, with its double 
summit wreathed in smoke, rose in the centre. 

The evening was now far advanced, and the 
setting sun shed a purple tint over the sides and 
summits of the mountain, giving at once a softness 
and a richness to the picture, contrasting finely with 
the darkness of the plains below, and the gessamer 
clouds sailing above. 

While they were engaged in the contemplation 
of this scene. Hartley, with the eye of an enthu- 
siast, the stranger with the apathy of satiety, tho 
courier of the latter rode up, and respectfully re- 
minded his master of the approaching night, and 
of the supposed vicinity of the banditti, who in- 
fested the boundaries which divided the territories 
of Rome and Naples. 

At this instant a shrill whistle was heard, imme- 


89 


THE OXONIANS. 


diately succeeded by a loud and piercing scream. 
The travellers started. The sound evidently came 
from one of the defiles, the mouth of which they 
had just passed. Hartley, with the first impulse, 
turned his horse and galloped in the direction from 
which the sound seemed to proceed. The stranger 
less moved, called after him to stop, but finding that 
he called in vain, contented himself with blaming 
jwhat he deemed his mad career, but followed him 
with the servants. 

Hartley proceeded to the entrance of the first defile, 
but had hardly gained it when a still louder scream, 
which evidently came in that direction, banished 
every prudential motive; and in despite of the 
ruggedness of the road, he spurred his spirited steed 
through brake and brier, and plunged at once into 
the dark and deep ravine, careless where it might 
lead, so long as it brought him nearer to the object 
he determined to assist. 

The screams now became fainter, but whether 
from weakness or distance he was unable to deter- 
mine, when issuing from the dark underwood, 
through which his horse had with difficulty forced 
his way, he discovered a narrow winding foot or 
bridle path leading to a road that passed through 
the valley that lay smiling at some distance beneath 
him. A large projecting rock at first intercepted 
his view, but as he passed it, a scene presented 
itself which roused all his young blood into action, 
and strung every nerve with indignation. On one 
side of a large patch of brushwood, two men with 
ferocious aspect, were standing over the body of an 
old man whom they were stripping, while they 
compelled him to keep his face buried in the earth, 
that he might not be able to recognize them at any 
future period ; while the third was rifling the person 
of an elderly woman, whose eyes were tightly 
bound with a handkerchief. On the other side of 
the wood, and considerably nearer to Hartley, two 
more ruffians were dragging by force a younger 
female, by whom the screams which had first 
attracted him were uttered. She was on her knees, 
her hands in the rude grasp of the ruffians, her hat 
lying at some distance, and her dishevelled and dis- 
ordered hair floating in the wind. In the road below 
stood the humble vehicle in which the party had tra- 
velled, with the postillion sitting a quiet spectator of 
the scene, while two small rough horses were tied to 
the stumps of a tree, at the entrance of another 
defile, at the foot of the precipice Hartley was 
descending, which appeared to communicate with 
the other side of the mountain. 

The ruffians were clad in a kind of half uniform, 
Eor rather the worn-out appendages of what had 
j ^ once been the costume of a regular soldier. Care- 
i|less of their numbers. Hartley pushed his horse at 
pall hazards down the precipice that divided him 
^ . from the scene of action ; a scream of delight from 
the female, and a savage yell from her assailants, 
proclaimed the discovery of his appearance. In a 
moment the hands of the prisoner were released, 
and a shot from a carbine whistled close to Hart- 
ley’s ear. Another, better directed, struck his ge- 
nerous and spirited steed ; and he had scarcely 
time to disentangle himself from the stirrups, ere 
the poor beast sunk into the brushwood, and strug- 
gling, rolled into the plain below. Hartley had 
I fortunately drawn a pistol from the holster, and 
lightly leaping through the only remaining obstacles 


that separated him from the first party, he dis- 
charged his pistol with such good aim that one of 
the ruffians fell before he could accomplish a second 
shot, that might have been fatal, while with a pow- 
erful blow, with that true Eriglish weapon, the fist, 
and which none but Englishmen know how to use 
with such good effect, he levelled the other aston- 
ished Italian to the earth. 

Fortunately for Hartley, the ruffians had already 
dragged their victim to such a distance from their 
companions as to preclude the possibility of their 
jgiving immediate assistance ; but attracted by the 
shots, they had suddenly quitted their plunder, and 
were now, with savage aspects and loud impreca- 
tions, approaching to revenge and assist their com- 
rades. 

The young female, still on her knees, clung to 
Hartley for protection, while he armed with the 
carbine of the fallen robber, courageously waited 
for their approach, although he felt the uselessness 
of his resistance ; all he could do was to utter a 
word of encouragement to his unfortunate com- 
panion, and determined to sell his life as dearly as 
possible in her defence. 

At this moment loud shouts were heard above, 
and Hartley’s fellow traveller was seen rapidly de- 
scending the precipice, accompanied by his own 
and Hartley’s servants. They were discovered at 
the same instant by the banditti, who, alarmed at 
such a reinforcement, hastily discharged their car- 
bines, and reaching their horses, galloped off, leav- 
ing their companions to their fate. 

In a few minutes the stranger and the servants 
were by the side of Hartley, who stood still on his 
defence, supporting the half-dying girl, whom his 
gallantry had thus rescued from a fate to which 
death was preferable, and who had now fainted 
from excess of agitation and excitement. Hartley 
hastily removed the long tresses with which her face 
was covered, that the air might blow upon her 
more freely, and to his inexpressible astonishment, 
discovered the features of the individual with whose 
person he had been so much struck at the convent 
in Rome. A feeling almost allied to that of plea- 
sure, even at such a moment as this, crossed his 
mind at a discovery which rendered him still more 
anxious for her security. Water was quickly pro- 
cured, and as her recollection slowly returned, and 
she became sensible of her late danger and present 
safety, she cast a glance at her deliverer, which 
fully repaid him for all that he had done. At this 
instant he perceived the eyes of the stranger tra- 
veller fixed upon her person with a freedom of 
gaze that displeased him ; his look seemed to be 
scanning the fair proportions of her form with the 
knowledge of a libertine connoisseur in female 
loveliness; and Hartley shrunk from the look, at 
the same time that he placed himself in a position 
to prevent its offending the female, whose eyes were 
still fixed upon him with an expression of gratitude, 
and who was attempting to articulate her thanks 
for her preservation. 

The old gentleman and lady could scarcely be 
prevailed on to believe in the reality of their safety; 
and when convinced of it were far more solicitous 
about their baggage, than to show their gratitude. 

The postillion now lent his assistance towards 
securing the wounded ruffian and his companion 
, who had been stunned by his fall, and the whole 


90 


THE OXONIANS. 


party were soon ready to proceed on their route; 
which tliey did in company till their arrival at the 
next staoe, where the bandit were delivered over to 
the proper authorities, and where all the travellers 
dehM riiiued to pass the night. 

A little nervous from the alarm which she had 
experienced, and delighted that the preservation of 
her.'-eif and her companions had been effected with- 
out injury to their persons, Hartley’s fair incognita 
met the party at supper with renovated spirits and 
beauty. She was one of those persons who not 
only strike the beholder at first sight, but for whom 
this first feeling of admiration rather increases than 
diminishes on acquaintance. 

She was tall and luxuriant!}' proportioned; her 
large dark eye. curtained with long silken lashes, 
spoke a mind alive to all the sensibilities of human 
nature; her high forehead bespoke deeper thought 
than generally falls to the lot of one so young; 
while the varied expression of her countenance ap- 
peared to reflect the feelings of her heart. Tears 
started to her eyes, as she again expressed her gra- 
titude to her preserver: and .she shuddered as her 
mind recurred to the probable fate from which he 
had rescued her. Her protectors too were profuse 
in their expressions of gratitude, but there was a 
coldness in their manner, and a lurking suspicion 
in their look, that ill-accorded with their words. 

During supper, and the short conversation that 
followed, Hartley could scarcely withdraw his eyes 
from Agnese, for by this appellation she was ad- 
dressed by her chaperons, who were evidently dis- 
pleased at the admiration which she excited. The 
stranger traveller did not pay her less attention, 
although he was more guarded in his expressions 
and looks than his young companion. Sometimes 
his eye assumed that libertine expression which 
had at first struck and offended Hartley; but after 
lie had gazed at her for a time, some thought or re- 
collection seemed to cross his mind, that changed 
the expres.^ion of his glance. 

In the little conversation that passed during sup- 
per, Agnese betrayed a mind of deep feeling, and 
an enthusiasm mingled with much more good sense 
than is its general accompaniment. She spoke 
with rapture of the poets of her own country, 
among whom Dante seemed to have engrossed 
most of her attention and admiration, though she 
acknowledged that his own words, 

A1 segno de mortal si sopra prose. 

were applicable to many parts of his sublime poem. 
“ He indeed.” said she, comparing him with other 
poets, “ soars high above them all, like the eagle 
to which he himself has compared Homer. 

“ Che sopra gli’ altri con’ aquila vola.” 

She understood English, too, and spoke it with an 
accent that surprised our travellers, and betrayed 
quite an English feeling in the admiration she ex- 
pressed of our Shakspeare. 

As Hartley gazed and listened, he drank deeply 
of the passion he thought he had forsworn for ever. 
In contemplating Agnese, all the names he had 
known sank in the comparison and giving up his 
whole love to the feelings of the moment, he for- 
got that she was an unknown foreigner ; his family 
and their wishes were again forgotten ; and he was 


on the brink of the same precipice from which h' 
had so lately escaped. Such uncertain mortals are 
we, when this predominant power of our hearts is 
concerned. 

Agnese w'as early withdrawn by her protectors, 
who avoided giving the travellers any clue to their 
situation and pursuits. Her hand trembled in that 
of Hartley’s, as she softly whispered her “good 
night,” and the sensation was communicated 'to 
his heart with the quickness of electricity. As the 
door closed upon her receding form, the world 
seemed to be shut out from him. It was in vain 
he rallied — in vain endeavored to keep up the con- 
versation on any other subject than that of the fair 
stranger; and here the iireveren9e with which his 
companion spoke of the sex in general ; the light- 
ness and levity of his remark with regard to female 
virtue, and the libertine comments he made on the 
person and beauty of Agnese, jarred discordantly 
upon the feelings which she had excited in his 
mind. 

They soon parted for the night; Hartley dis- 
gusted with the libertine coldness of his com- 
panion, and he in his turn smiling, if not jeering 
at the enthusiasm of Hartley. 

After a restless night Hartley rose early, in the 
hope of seeing Agnese ; but what was his surprise 
at being informed that she and her companions had 
quitted the inn at the dawn of day, leaving only a 
written repetition of their thanks. All that he 
could hear, was, that they had taken the road to 
Naples, when he determined to lose no time in 
following them, in the faint hope that chance might 
again befriend him by throwing Agnese in his 
way. 

His fellow-traveller experienced no surprise at 
this sudden departure. He spoke of it as the com- 
mon want of politeness of those upon whom bene- 
fits were conferred ; hinted his suspicions that 
Agnese was some adventuress ; and congratulated 
himself and Hartley on their escape. A close dis- 
cerner, however, would have read more in his looks 
and manners than his words conveyed. But Hart- 
ley was too much absorbed in his own feelings, 
and too much annoyed by these observations, to 
look farther than their general meaning; and, 
anxious to commence his pursuit, he would have 
taken his departure at once, had not the stranger 
asked for his name, that he might at some future 
period claim a farther acquaintance with “ his 
enthusiastic young companion.” At the same time 
that he made this request, he presented his own 
card as “ Mr. Arlirigford.” Little as Hartley felt 
inclined to renew an acquaintance so casually 
commenced, he could do no less than give his ow'n 
card in return, and could not help feeling surprised 
at the effect which it produced on Mr. Arlingford. 

“ Hartley !” exclaimed he : “ what, of Hartley 
Grove, the son of Lady Emily Hartley ?” and ho 
looked inquisitively at Hartley, while fiis eye mea- 
sured the athletic proportions of his really fine 
person. 

“ The same,” replied Hartley. “ Do you know 
my mother ]” 

“ I did,” answered Arlingford, “ in days long 
since past;” and a shade appeared to cloud his 
features at the recollections which the name seemed 
to have brought to his mind. 

He again looked at Hartley almost rudely, and 


THE OXONIANS. 


91 


the scrutiny seemed to be anything but pleasing to 
him. 

“ Well, sir,” said he, we part; but I have no 
doubt we shall meet ere long, either here or in 
England. In the meantime, beware, sir, of the 
arts of Italian adventuresses; any connection with 
them will be as displeasing to Lady Emily and 

Mr. Hartley as they would be to” He stopped 

suddenly, as though .he had gone too far, and 
finished his sentence, by saying, as “ they would 
tend to your own unhappiness. Farewell, sir;” 
and Arlingford quitted the room, leaving Hartley 
not a little surprised at this recognition of his 
family, as well as to the oddness of the manner 
with which it had been acknowledged. With the 
feelings which were growing in his heart for Ag- 
nese, however, he had little room for reflection 
upon what interested him so little. He therefore 
mounted his carriage, and gave up his mind to all 
those delicious sensations which a newly-created 
passion excites, as it rolled on through Capua 
to Naples. 

From the termination of his adventure with 
Caroline Dormer, Hartley had conceived himself 
proof against the influence of another passion, and 
little anticipated that his heart would be thus 
taken by su prise. 

When first Hartley saw Agnese in the church, 
he could not resist a secret presentiment that the. 
interests of the being whose beauty and devotion 
he was contemplating, were in some way or other 
mingled with his own ; and his preservation of her 
from the robbers tended very naturally to confirm 
this feeling. 

The very idea too of having preserved her from 
such a fate added to the tenderness of his senti- 
ments towards her; for it is one of the traits of 
human nature to love those whom we. have saved 
or protected. 

No wonder that these feelings, added to the 
great personal attraction of Agnese, should kindle 
the feeling of love in such a breast as Hartley’s; 
and though he had latterly been in the habit 
of doubting the possibility of love at first sight, he 
could not but confess that he felt it. Not that 
love which grows, and like a child gets by slow 
degrees to its perfection ; but such a passion, as, 
like the first man, came created in its full strength 
at the first minute — that love which 

Only gains from time 
To he called constant, not reversed. • 

In fact, though our hero must sink in the esteem 
of our female readers, thus to forget Caroline, ffiid 
to feel love a second time, let me write of human 
nature, and not of superhuman constancy. 

We could fill a volume with a description 6f 
Hartley’s pursuit and discovery of Agnese ; of the 
stolen interviews which she granted him ; and the 
history of the progress of that passion, which, 
according to Hartley’s presentiment, united both 
their fates in one. 

Their love seemed to have imbibed its ardor from 
the climate under which it was fostered, and the 
only drawback on its indulgence, was the mystery 
by which the birth and history of Agnese were 
surrounded, and the coldness with which Hartley’s 
attentions were received by her protectors. Of 
herself Agnese knew nothing, but that she had 


been educated in a conservatorio of music, for the 
purpose of being a public singer, and, in spite of 
natural repugnance to the profession, she was now 
perfecting herself in the necessary accomplishments 
under the first professors of the day. 

In spite of his resolution. Hartley was thus a 
second time involving himself in an attachment, 
which he knew must be displeasing to his family; 
but he now loved with a fervor of the permanency of 
which he was convinced ; and in drawing a con> 
parison betweei, his present feelings and those he 
experienced for Caroline, he could on^y wonder how 
he had ever thought that he loved her. 

Before Hartley, however, could systematize any 
plan, the object of his attachment suddenly quitted 
Naples, leaving only a short note, saying that her 
protectors thought it prudent to remove her, and 
that all pursuit was vain. The same day a letter 
arrived from his father, couched in rather angry 
tones, recalling him instantly to England. 

The coincidence of these circumstances, together 
with the tone of his father’s letter, inferred the sus- 
picion that his family was not ignorant of his at- 
tachment; and his good sense suggested that his 
best plan was to return, and to make his father his 
friend and confidant. 

Towards England, therefore, Hartley shifted his 
course, taking the best steps he could through 
various emissaries, to ascertain the retreat of Ag- 
nese. 

In England he pursued his plan of making con- 
fidants of Mr. Hartley and Lady Emily, and, in 
spite of the prejudices which they both naturally 
possessed, and those they had imbibed from some 
correspondent who had informed them of their 
son’s attachment to an unknown Italian, educating 
for the stage, he succeeded in interesting them in 
favor of Agnese. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE RETURN. 

It was a bright, day, at the commencement of 
spring, when the w'armth of the sun in its meredian 
would almost make those who felt its influence, be- 
lieve the summer to he already come — that dne of 
the numerous packets, which now keep up such a 
continual correspondence between England and 
France, through the short sea dividing Dover from 
Calais, was descried from Shakspeare’s Cliff. 

Well — the packet made the pier; a dense white 
mist rushing through the valves of the engines, told 
the spectators that the steam had been stopped. 
Passengers ran to their portmanteaux, sacs de nuits, 
and the numerous other conveniences, in which 
their travelling wardrobes had been packed, or in 
which, cunningly enfolded in stockings or linen, 
lay hid their little contrabandages.” Some hur- 
ried to the shore, exhibiting pale faces, which de- 
picted their recent suffering, careless of every 
thing but once more placing their feet upon terra 
firma : and abandoning their luggage to the Cus- 
tom-house officer, sought for nothing but relief 


92 


THE OXONIANS. 


from the heart-appalling oppression of sea-sickness, 
while more experienced or hardened voyagers, 
smiling at this distress of their fellow-passengers, 
coollv watched their packages into the hands of the 
officers, and followed them to the place of examin- 
ation ; anxious only to get to an English inn, or 
an English coach-office, to secure their first Eng- 
lish meal, or a place outside or inside tlie first Lon- 
don coach. 

Lashed on the deck appeared two carriages, the 
one a britschka, and the other a travelling chariot. 
Their panels proclaimed no aristocratic owner, 
as they were quite plain; but the shape, bear- 
ings, and appointment of the vehicles themselves, 
showed that they belonged to a person of the 
most perfect taste in such afifairs, while the dark 
gray livery jackets, without facings of the two 
men who were assisting the seamen in unlash- 
ing them, under the superintendence of a courier, 
habited after a foreign fashion, bespoke the pro- 
prietor to be a man of no common rank. An elder- 
ly Frenchman ascended the deck, and despatched 
one of the servants ashore, who was presently seen 
returning with four pair of posthorses, denoting the 
traveller’s intention to proceed immediately. A pa- 
per, shown by the same Frenchman to the Custom- 
house officers, not only prevented their detaining 
the carriages and the luggage they contained, as 
they had every thing else on board the packet, but 
even induced them to lend every assistance to faci- 
litate the departure of their proprietor without any 
examination. 

The carriages were, at length, safely landed ; 
the horses were put to them ; and when every thing 
was ready to depart, the Frenchman again went on 
board the packet, and descended to the cabin. 

The Frenchman remounted the deck, and was 
speedily followed by the anxiously looked-for tra- 
veller; he was rather above the middle height, yet 
not to be called tall — remarkably elegant in the 
bearing of his figure, and in the carriage of his 
person. A dark frock coat, of that indescribable 
color so nearly approaching to black, was buttoned 
tight round his body, up close to the chin, with 
loose trowsers of the same material. A collar of 
the most beautiful sable was the only piece of cox- 
combry in his dress. A loose travelling cap was 
placed carelessly on his head, and his whole ap- 
pearance, at a distance, gave the spectators the idea 
of a man about thirty. A nearer approach, how- 
ever, which revealed the lines of his features, soon 
destroyed this illusion, and bespoke him to be 
nearer fifty, spite of that elasticity of gait, which 
he was at evident pains to preserve. He held a 
book in his hand, which he appeared to have been 
just reading. When he first mounted the deck, 
he cast one inquisitive glance towards the shore, 
by which one might have imagined him to have 
been absent from England for a long period ; but 
there was no appearance of pleasure in that glance ; 
no appearance of emotion or sensation of any kind, 
at again treading on his native land; all ap- 
peared apathy. 

The gaze and curiosity of the spectators were 
totally lost upon him, as he passed through them, 
with an eye that appeared to see and to notice 
nothing The two liveried men had the door open, 
and the well carpeted steps down to the ground, 


displaying the dark green lining of the interior 
of the carriage. As he mounted, he turned for a 
moment to the Frenchman, who was obsequiously 
following with a superb roquelaire, lined with er- 
mine, lying over his arm, and said in French : 

“ Monlez done, La Tour,” 

Oui, Monsieur,” replied the obsequious valef, 
and followed his master into the carriage, which 
was immediately closed. 

The courier vaulted into the dickey, in the front 
of the britschka. The two lackeys mounted the 
rumble-tumble of the chariot, and away went both 
vehicles, enveloping the curious spectators in a 
cloud of dust. 

Our readers may easily imagine the traveller to 
be Lord Arlington, who, tired of the Continent, 
and for other purposes, determined at last to try to 
find some relief from his restlessness in his native 
country. 

Arrived in Audley-square, the whole of this 
magnificent establishment was ready to receive 
him ; but he no longer recognized, in the advanced 
age of his servants, those who had waited upon 
him twenty years before ; and he retired to his 
dressing-room in disgust, followed by La Tour, 
who could only shrug his shoulders, and exclaim, 
“ Mon Dieu ! comme ils sont changes, — tout le 
monde s’est vieilli !” 

Although upwards of twenty years had elapsed 
since Lord Arlington had quitted his native coun- 
try, his heart felt no joy at his return. He came 
back more from the anxiety for that perpetual 
change upon which his satiated existence almost de- 
pended, than from any wish to revisit the land of 
his birth. A love of country is a virtue which even 
the savage bears to his native wdlds — 

The naked negro panting at the line, 

Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine; 

The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zone, 

Boldly proclaims the happiest state his own. 

But Arlington possessed not this virtue ; he was 
too thoughtless an egotist; all his love was cen- 
tered in himself, by which his heart was so en- 
grossed, that there was not room for another sensa- 
tion. Although he could not yet number half a 
century of winters, he had outlived all the plea- 
sures of his existence. He had drained the cup of 
sensual delights to the very dregs, till all that was 
formerly pleasure now only palled upon his sensea 
He lived but in a variety, which it was the study 
of his whole life to create. His heart had become 
passionless, and his senses so uses, that there re- 
mained scarcely the possibility of a new excite- 
ment. Thrown early into life, the possessor of a 
princely fortune, and of great personal accomplish- 
ments, he had devoted the whole of his powers to 
the pursuits of libertinism ; had paved the path of 
his career with the broken hearts and defamed 
honors of his victims ; had gloried in the ruin 
which he termed success, and had shuddered at no 
sacrifice, which procured for him the unworthy en- 
joyment of a momentary triumph ; till pleasures 
had done upon him the work of time, and ploughed 
upon his brows those furrows which others derive 
alone from age. 

Disfarnished him of active blood, and wrapp’d 
Him. half in sear cloth. 




THE OXONIANS. 


93 


The last act of his career, by which he had 
plunged an angelic being into a disgrace which 
destroyed her, by tempting her into a marriage with 
him, while he had actually another wife upon the 
continent, had been so flagrant, that his rank 
would scarcely have preserved him from its conse- 
quences. He had therefore quitted England, and, 
under a feigned name, had in every capital of Eu- 
rope been guilty of the same excesses which had 
characterized his conduct in his own country. But 
though libertinism may, in some light and un- 
thinking minds, claim an apology for the heat of 
young blood, and the madness of youthful passion, 
there is nothing can palliate the disgust it excites, 
when it is accompanied by the years that would 
have taught experience, and by the experience 
which should have checked its progress. Every 
grey hair that appeared in Lord Arlington’s head — 
every additional line that his excesses ploughed in 
his cheek, w'ere so many reproaches to his profli- 
gacy — the more deep and bitter, as every one pro- 
claimed him to be nearer the close of those un- 
worthy enjoyments which had been the sole pur- 
suits of his life. 

None find it so difficult to grow old gracefully as 
the hackneyed libertine. The mere sensualist has 
no reflections to fall back upon — no character upon 
which to build himself a respectable old age — 
nothing but regret for the past — nothing but des- 
pair for the future; the powers upon which his 
pleasures were dependent are daily diminishing, 
and he has nothing but the weakness, with none 
of the respectability, of age to anticipate. 

The first symptoms of that satiety, which is the 
constant attendant of a mere life of pleasure, is 
observable in that continued wish for variety which 
is never satisfied. This, Lord Arlington had pain- 
fully felt for years. It was in vain that he changed 
his place of residence — vain that he varied the ob- 
jects of his pursuit; his princely fortune could not 
procure a pleasure that produced him satisfaction. 

At length, fatigued with endless and useless 
pursuits, he suddenly bethought himself that per- 
haps his owm country might afford something like 
novelty to his exhausted mind ; and that his native 
air might have the effect of renovation to the fail- 
ing powers of his constitution 

He embraced the idea with avidity, and never 
rested till he was again seated in his family man- 
sion in Audley square. Twenty years before, in 
the flagrance of his triumphant career, he had 
boldly dashed into the circles of ton, and had carried 
fashion by storm. But it was different now. His 
heart and mind were of the same restless nature 
as af that period ; but excess had paralyzed his 
nerve, and he felt it necessary to proceed with cau- 
tion, and to fortify himself by all those adjuncts 
which his fortune could produce, to ensure him a 
favorable reception. In this return, Arlington 
coold promise himself none of those delights which 
arise fram the revival of old friendships ; for a li- 
bertine hair no friends. But he had imbibed an 
idea that the scenes of his earliest pleasures might 
recall a portion of those hours of enjoyment which 
had so nearly deserted hrm, and that recollection 
might give a factitious freshness, to the attempt at 
their repetition. What the immediate effect of his 
return upon his own mind was, may bo.seen by the 


following letter, w^ritten to a libertine companion, 
on his arrival at his own house : 

LOKD ARLINGTOIV TO FREDERICK VILLARS. 

“ Well, Villars, I am again in London. After a 
lapse of near twenty years, I am again in the midst 
of all those scenes where we have both acted such 
prominent parts ; and here are the same houses, 
the same squares, the same monuments, all as 
strong and fresh as ever ; every . thing the same, 
excepting the people, and they are the only things 
which seem^to have grown older. Strange! is it 
not, Fred 1 that man, the lord of all the paramount 
creatures of the creation, to w'hose fiat every thing 
mundane bows, should exhibit more decay than 
the tree he plants, and the house he builds. Yet 
so it is ; his own acts live and flourish a practical 
mockery of hia own decay. We are born to create 
things which outlive ourselves. Surely this must 
be some fault in the general mechanism of the uni- 
verse — there is my house in Audley square, — my 
mansions in the country — the works of my ances- 
tors, not only outliving those who, built them, but 
outliving me — a little gilding, paint, and white- 
wash, and they are as fresh as ever ; while their 
master — but I hate to think of it: — to grow old — 
to grow impotent in action, and yet feel the fires of 
the heart — the impulse of the mind as hot and fresh 
as ever; — to find all paralyzed, save those pas- 
sions which have acted like the lava of the volcano, 
rendering every thing black, black, and sterile above 
it. For time has not preached my tumultuous 
pulse to rest, although he has sprinkled his snow 
upon my hair, and ploughed his cursed furrows in 
my cheek ! Old, did I say — and yet I am not old ; 
what is half a century amid the many hundred 
years of time — amid the teeming myriads of ages 
which compose Eternity. — Eternity ! — ’tis a word 
I hate, because I dread it — yet could I be sure of 
its enjoyment here — but I will not write about it 
— I will not think about it — I will not believe in it. 
Why was I not born in those days of Methusalem, 
when men came to years of discretion at ninety , 
and when the grand climateric was five hundr^, 
instead of a paltry fifty years 1 

“Fifty — and after all what are fifty years? — 
the age of a mere boy. Why Isocrates, whom old 
Valerias Maximus calls a'longtB et felicis indus- 
trise exemplum,’ did not write his noblest work till 
he was ninety-four, and how was this work styled 1 
why, ‘ Opus ardenlis spiritus plenum, ex quo appa- 
ret senescentibus membris, eruditiorem^ intus ani- 
mum industriae beneficio, florem juventae retmere,’ 
and am I to lose the ‘ ardentis spiritus plenum,’ and 
the ‘ Florum juventae’ at fifty 1 

“ Carneades, whose opinion that nothing W'as 
perceived or understood in the world we use to en- 
joy in our youth, was dismissed from Rome by 
Cato, from the fear of his corrupting the Roman 
youth, when he w^as near ninety. Chrysippus, 
whose freedom of opinion on the subject of women, 
gave a color to our own, died in a fit of laughter at 
eighty, with a goblet in his hand, and might have 
lived another score or years, had he not made so 
free with his bottle. Simonides obtained a poetical 
prize at eighty, and added four letters to the Greek 
alphabet at ninety. Old Sophocles did not die till 


94 


THE OXONIANS. 


lie was ninety-one, and then only through excess 
of joy, like an old fool, because he won the prize at 
the Olympic games. If his tragedy had been 
datniK'd, he might have lived till now, in propria 
pprsonae, instead of in mere posthumous fame. 
What an ugly word that posthumous is! You see, 
Fred, I am relr. sliing myself with the remembrance 
of all these centenarians who enjoyed life when 
they were forty years older than I am. Forty 
years — forty times twelve months, think of that; 
W’hv its an eternity to look forward to. To look 
bjck, to be sure, it does not seem so wondrous 
long, and yet if naturalisis and plilosophers speak 
truth, we can never grow old. According to them, 
the materitl of our frame is undergoing perpetual 
changes ; therefore ought we to he perpetually 
young. I no longer wonder, Fred, at those who 
grown gray, and old, and impotent ; and who have 
furrowed the cheek of manhood with the deep 
wrinkles of premature age, in searching for the 
elixir which w'as to bestow perpetual youth. 
Where is the fortune that one would not sacrifice 
for it? Nay, where' is the kingdom that one would 
not cheerfully resign for such a discovery! 

“ Travelling, and mixing perpetually witk stran- 
gers, and making life a cosmorama of perpetually 
ehifting scenes and persons; I never felt this ap- 
proach to age, excepting, perhaps, in occasional 
^ defaillance or when that devil, La Tour, with 
his cursed tweezers, would now and then twitch 
out a gray hair, and holding il; ip in the light as 
an apology for the pain he had given me, would 
indict a more serious pang by its exhibition. But 
here, here, Fred, I am perpetually reminded of my 
approximation to that state of life we have so often 
ridiculed; to the fat justice, and the lean and slip- 
pered pantaloon, to the last of the seven ages, by 
the appearance of those around me. My house- 
keeper, whom I left a buxom widow of forty, is 
shrivelled up into wrinkles and gray hairs — a piece 
of parchment soaked and dried — not fit even for a 
lease of a year. Her daughter, who, on my depar- 
ture, was a fine young woman of twenty — one 
whom even you and I might have looked upon, 
had we not been better engaged — is turned into a 
staid fat matron ; looking precisely what her mo- 
Lner was when I left her ; while my old porter, 
whom I left a hale and hearty fellow of fifty, is now 
a decrepid, asthmatic, gouty old driveller of seven- 
ty, If I walk abroad I read my own progress to- 
wards age in the lines of every face I meet, and I 
turn from them with the same disgust that a ci- 
devant beauty, who has just risen from the small- 
pox, would from her looking-glass. 

“ In short, Fred, during my absence, children 
have grown into men and women; young mothers 
have become grand-mothers, and all the world 
seems to have taken one gigantic stride towards the 
grave. The grave ! and have I approached it too 
. — have I, the gay, the frolicsome, the life of every 
thing, as you and our companions have called me, 
have I made the same stride towards this dark, this 
damned hole, in which all the pleasures of life are 
to be buried for ever ; in which one’s wild and ex- 
cursive imagination, is to be cramped and crammed 
into a pit six feet by two. I will not think of it — 
I will not believe it. It may be made for the dri- 
velling wretches around us; but for you and 7, 
Fred, men of life and spirit, laughers at every thing 


serious, it cannot, shall not be; and yet Csesar lies 
buried — but he was assassinated ; and yet Anthony, 
who had basked in pleasure on the fair bosom of 
Cleopatra, did not the less lie in the cold, cold 
earth ; but he, like a fool, contended with Pompey 
for a throne, and was slain ; and we have seen our 
companions drop off one by one, and have followed 
some of them to this cursed cold receptacle of all 
that remained of what were once good fellows. 
These are damning facts ! and I can scarcely be- 
lieve that those we have laughed with and laughed 
at ; those, who have been our companions in our 
follies ; those whom we have seen flushed with the 
Tuscan grape in a roar of jollity, and following 
our lead with a spirit worthy of ourselves ; I can 
scarcely believe, I say, that theie are the tenants of 
a dark cold tomb. And then the women too — 
those whose clear complexion, sparkling eyes, deli- 
cious forms, we have admired — are they doomed to 

Lie in cold obstruction, and to rot 1 

and to have their delicate skins defiled by the slime 
of those cursed reptiles which, they say, revel upon 
our bodies in this banqueting house for worms'? 
Pshaw ! I will not think about it. 

“You ask, why did I venture to England? — 
Vtnlure ! Is it you who put that question to me? 
When W'as there any thing which pleased me, for 
which I did not venturel When was there any 
obstacle I did not overcome ? However, to answer 
your plain question — I am come to England, first, 
because I was tired of the Continent. My mind 
seems to live, like a consumptive man, only on 
change ; and have I not tried every change that 
the Continent could present ? Have I not tried 
love, and what has it yielded ? nothing but an end- 
less series of the same pursuits and the same suc- 
cess. How I hate that word sarne. Did I not try 
war, and vainly imagined that I might find plea- 
sure, — that commodity which to you and me seems 
epuisee, — in reviving the glory of ancient Greece ; 
and what was I but the tool of a party, the prey of 
a bandit, the laughingstock of Europe? 7’here I 
wrote and slaved for the pleasures of others. At any 
rate it is wiser to follow my old pursuits and labor 
for my own delight. Another reason for my return 
is, that I love to prove all prophecies excepting my 
own to be false, and every body here had prophesied 
that I should never return to England; and I 
longed also to prove to them that there was nothing 
I would not do. Be.sides there was no danger. The 
aristocracy, Fred, does not like to blazon any thing 
connected with its own immaculate body that does 
not raise it in the eyes of those whose inferiority 
gives them the privilege of their rank. Then, sir, 
there is this heir of mine, whom you know I met 
in Italy, and who shames me as much by the 
healthiness of his mind, as by the elasticity of his 
youth. I don’t know how it is, but I have an in- 
superable aversion to a man, whom I see ready to 
slip into my saddle the moment 1 am compelled tt> 
quit it ; and at my age, marriage is not quite out of 
the card; so Mr. Francis Hartley need not make 
himself too sure yet. That Italian girl, too, whom 
he evidently loves so ardently, and who, if I am 
any judge of the sex, and I have some right to 
imagine that I am a pretty competent one, loves 
him in return ; but when I mention this girl, I con- 


THE OXONIAN S.» 


95 


fess myself bewildered in my own feelings, never 
liaving been before interested about a woman, ex- 
cepting on one account; I naturally enough placed 
the interest she inspired in me to the old score, at- 
tempted — and — shall 1 confess it — failed ! — yes, 
failed ! I envied Hartley the possession of her 
love; and when 1 learned that his passion only 
looked to honorable gratification, my family pride 
determined me to prevent the possibility of an un- 
known foreigner becoming the mother of the future 
Arlingtons. This is a prejudice I imbibed with 
my infancy, and it remains as strong as ever. She 
shall not, at any rate, be the wife of Hartley, un- 
less I am the father of my own heir, and then, per- 
haps, I might glory in the mortification of the 
immaculate Lady Emily, and his philosophic father 
in such a union. 

‘‘Another and perhaps a more potent cause than 
all the rest is, that I have more dependence on my 
native air, and a greater reliance on English phy- 
sicians, for the restitution of that health and 
strength, which, like cowards, seem retreating from 
the path in which I would still employ them. The 
foreign pharmacopceia seems too weak for an Eng- 
lish constitution. There, Fred, thou hast now my 
whole list of reasons. I did not mean to give thee 
the last ; but it poured out with the rest, like the 
lees at the bottom of a decanter; so be secret on 
that which I scarcely own to myself — but you have 
been so long a part of that self, that there seems 
an impulse to divulge every thing to you too strong 
for the power of my volition to resist. 

“ But I must prepare for my winter campaign. 
Dost remember how we dashed into the season for- 
merly 1 Now, I must, win my way ; and to do it 
successfully, I have given orders for every thing 
that may make Arlington house attractive ; and 
when were there entertainments without guests] 
or liberal hosts that had not good characters ! 

“ Ever, yours, 

“ Arlington.” 

“ P. S. Do not forget my wishes to discover the 
real family of the Italian girl. I cannot account 
for my curiosity, but it exists, and that is enough 
to make me wish for its gratification, you have the 
clue; pursue it with your accustomed ingenuity, 
and I have no doubt you will ascertain all I wish to 
know.” 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

RECAPITULATION. 

A RETURN to the circles of London society, after 
only a few years’ absence, does not present much 
novelty, or many changes. We find the pursuits 
still the same, the same round of apathetic plea- 
sures, the same career of dissipation. A few more 
names added to the list of the ruined — an heiress 
has become the prey of a fortune hunter — or a 
young man of high birth and expectations has been 
inveigled into a match by some manoeuvring 
mamma. A sportsman or two may have disap- 


peared from the turf; hazard or ecarte may have 
driven one or two additional families to increase the 
circles of Boulogne, Tours, or Rouen ; but their 
places are filled up by others, and the surface of 
society remains the same. It is thus that the world 
moves in the same careless round, presenting at 
every turn lessons of experience, by which nobody 
profits, and one unceasing history of the same oc- 
currences. 

The season had just commenced on Arlington’s 
return, and it found our dramatis personae much in 
the same state as when w'e last quitted them. 

Lady Orville was still pursuing her deep schemes 
for the increase of her power, and for the gratifica- 
tion of her passions, — still following the same ca- 
reer of heartless intrigue; and lady Sophia only a 
little more impatient for that establishment which 
her mother had hitherto failed to procure. The re- 
turn of Hartley had renewed the hopes they had 
formerly entertained, that he was destined to rea- 
lize their expectations ; and the improvement in his 
manners -and person, which his three years’ conti- 
nental tour had f)roduced, brought all the heart that 
Lady Sophia possessed into her wishes for the ac- 
complishment of this union. 

Lascelles had gone on in the same course, till 
his improvident bets, his bad luck at hazard, and 
his repeated applications to old Langley, had re- 
duced his once splendid fortune to a mere pittance, 
in comparison with what it had been. As his 
losses continued, he solaced himself with the bottle, 
till his whole time was absorbed between the ex- 
citements of play and of wine, and he was very 
nearly degenerating into the mere gambler and the 
sot. Still his bets were sought eagerly at Tatter- 
sal’s, and his company was anxiously looked for at 
hazard and ecarte, as he had never done any thing 
to forfeit his integrity, either on the turf or at the 
table. Plantations had vanished, and acre after 
acre had melted away to pay his debts of honor; 
and while there was a rood of ground or a stick of 
timber remaining, the leeches who had bled him so 
freely could not think of deserting their prey. 

Langley was still in all the perplexity of Chan- 
cery, still living upon hope, and led on and on by 
his legal advisers, although every step that was 
taken seemed to place him farther from his object, 
and to involve him in greater uncertainties. 

Our principal hero, for such we must now desig- 
nate Hartley, quitted Hartley Grove, to which he 
had been recalled from the continent, for the pur- 
pose of entering into public life, and turning the 
.energies of his nature to some account for the good 
of mankind, or for the advancement of his own 
fame. 

Secret as he imagined his attachment for his 
fair Italian to have been, his family had been ap- 
prized of it by some anonymous hand, and the in- 
formation was coupled with advice for his im- 
mediate recall, unless his father was prepared to 
see his name bestowed upon a foreigner, and the 
inheritors of his estate, the children of an ob- 
scure, if not of a profligate stranger. It was this 
anonymous appeal to the weakness of Mr. Hart- 
ley’s character, that had produced the sudden re- 
call, which, at the time, had surprised our hero 
at Naples. Upon a mere repetition of his story, 
which he confided generall}'^ to his father, and 
more particularly to Ijady Emily, Hartley could 


96 


THE OXONIANS. 


not but feel the justice of their apprehensions. — 
The family of Agnese, her earlier life, her future 
intentions, were equally unknown to him, and he 
dared not breathe his suspicions, which the style 
of her education had excited in his mind, that her 
protectors intended her for a public performer, that 
they might reap the benefit of those musical talents 
which are a certain fortune to the possessor, when 
they come stamped with the currency of Italian 
fame. Indeed, Agnese herself had half confessed 
this, and shuddered at the fears it excited in her 
sensitive mind. To breathe such a suspicion to 
his family would be only to add a more potent 
argument to those which his ignorance of her state 
and station already presented against the indul- 
gence of his passion. 

Yet with so much reason against its propriety, 
and with scarcely any hope, Hartley still secretly 
cherished his love for Agnese ; her beauty, her 
accomplishments, the ideas that he had formed of 
the superiority of her character, had all made loo 
deep an impression upon him to be easily erased ; 
and although he could not advance any arguments 
to combat the rational ones of his father, he had 
yet an internal conviction that she was w'orthy of 
the love that she had inspired ; and who was ever 
in love without the same idea of his mistress T’ 

Mr. Hartley and Lady Emily were grieved at 
the impediments which they saw this passion threw 
in the way of their son’s marrying according to 
their desires ; but they were satisfied with his pro- 
mise never to form a connexion that should be 
displeasing to them. Lest our lady readers may 
throw more blame upon our hero for thus very 
unhtroically resigning his heart to the influence 
of a second love, than he deserved, we must inform 
them that he had never ceased to regret the disap- 
pearance of Caroline, or to hope that time might 
produce the opportunity that he and his father de- 
sired to make her some reparation. The very 
nature of his love for Agnese, however, added to 
the consciousness of his guilt towards Caroline ; 
for he now found that he had only felt for her the 
passing inclination of a moment, which her beauty 
had excited, and that he had indeed sacrificed her 
to a mere selfish feeling. 

To Emily’s mind the country and her old pur- 
suits had soon restored its proper tone ; she looked 
back blushingly upon the weakness by which she 
had been misled ; but Forrester rose in her estima- 
tion by the contrast which his character formed 
with the light and frivolous beings by whom she 
had been deceived. The sterling ore of his solid 
acquirements created in her a contempt for the 
more showy accomplishments which had dazzled 
her. He was now, therefore, her accepted lover, 
and their marriage was determined to take place at 
the end of the next season, which it was resolved, 
on both their parts, should be again passed in 
London; that Emily might prove the truth of her 
own new formed opinions with relation to life, and 
as a kind of protection, which Forrester insisted 
upon as to the stability of those sentiments which 
she now avowed in his favor. 

Lady Emily’s London establishment had there- 
fore been formed for the winter, and her parties 
were among those which gave the stamp and 
curreney of fashion to every body who partook of 


her entertainments. Lady Orville’s arts had still 
so much power over Lady Emily, whose ears were 
deaf to tales of scandal, that she was quite insensi- 
ble, >) her real character, and the Countess derived 
an additional power from her intimacy with such 
a person as Lady Emily Hartley. ^ 

Lord Arlington’s sudden and unexpected appear- 
ance in London created little sensation, excepting 
in his own immediate connexions, and among those 
who knew the history of his marriage and its con- 
sequences. The length of time, however, which 
had passed, had mellowed the notoriety of these 
circumstances in many instances into indefinite re- 
collections of youthful profligacy, and his changed 
appearance softened the indignation which might 
have been kept alive, had Arlington returned in 
the vigor of his manhood, instead of the victim ol 
a premature old age. 

He easily found two peers, therefore, of that 
party who wanted his proxy, to accompany him to 
the House when he took his oaths and his seat; 
and though men of his own standing, who could 
quite overcome the recollection of the enormity of 
his conduct with regard to a high-minded and 
greatly gifted woman, shrunk from his intimacy, he 
found enough among those who knew these circum- 
stances only from tradition, who were glad to culti- 
vate the friendship of the master of such magnifi- 
cent establishments as those of Audley ISquare and 
Arlington Hall. The character of a man does not 
render his dinners less piquant, nor deprive his pre- 
serves of the sport they alford. His covers, both in 
town and the country, are equally attractive. Nor 
were there wanting dowagers with unmarried 
daughters, who, in spite of all, still sought for an 
alliance with a man, whose very name they ought 
not to have uttered in their daughters’ presence. 
But Lord Arlington was now, undoubtedly, a wi- 
dower; could as undoubtedly make his wife a 
countess ; was not more than fifty ; and what could 
any reasonable woman wish for more ] 

Lord Arlington knew the world too well not to be 
pretty certain that this would be the case, and he 
smiled with greater contempt than ever at those 
who sacrificed their pleasures to the prejudices of a 
society, which was so easily prevailed upon to aban- 
don its ideas of propriety and virtue in favor of 
rank and wealth; and confirmed himself in the 
opinion that that could be of no consequence, the 
necessity for which could be obviated by such ad- 
ventitious circumstances. 

By Lady Orville and the Hartley family, the 
return of Lord Arlington was not looked upon 
with such indifference. In both of them it revived 
recollections too deeply rooted to be eradicated. 
Lady Emily thought of the beloved friend of her 
youth, and shuddered at the sight of him by whom 
she had been sacrificed. The countess remembered 
his triumph and desertion, and a more deadly 
hatred arose in her bosom, at the proximity of the 
man to whom she attributed all the circumstances 
of her future career of passion, and whom she con- 
sidered as the spirit of evil which had influenced 
her life. 7’he Hartleys, both out of respect to 
their family, and in the hope that age passed in 
respectability, might redeem, in some measure, the 
stain which his early excesses had cast upon a name 
and title to which they were the presumptive heirs, 


THE OXONIANS. 


97 


would not be the only ones to exclude their rela- 
tive from their house, or to perpetuate that stain by 
the continuance of their resentment. 

It was, however, with great repugnance that 
Lady Emily first met Arlington ; nor was it with- 
out shrinking, that he again saw the friend of the 
woman he had so deeply injured. She once asked 
if he knew of the ftite of his child, and being an- 
swered in the negative, former circumstances were 
never recurred to, excepting the secret remembrance 
of Lady Emily, or in those moments of Lord Ar- 
lington, when remorse will force itself upon the re- 
flections of the most hardened. 

And now, having again placed our dramatis 
personae on the London stage, we must to it “ like 
French falconers,^’ and finish our book. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A LIBERTINE. 

“ No MAN is a great man to his valet-de-chambre,” 
is an old saying and a true one ; and had La Tour 
told the mysteries of his master’s dressing-room, 
and of his sleepless pillow, there are few who 
would have envied successes, the consequences of 
which were satiety and premature old age ; — old 
age, too, without one of the comforts so necessary 
to make it palatable to the mind. 

One of the mortifications which attended Lord 
Arlington’s return among the companions of his 
earlier days, arose from the comparison he could 
not help drawing between himself and those who 
had led a different life. His cousin Hartley, for 
instance, though two or three years his senior, was 
still a young man ; and in the robustness of his 
health stood by the side of Arlington’s attenuated 
though elegant frame like an oak by the side of a 
reed. His eye was sparkling, and his cheek glow- 
ing with health; while those of Arlington spoke 
of internal weakness and' decay. Of this difference 
he was painfully sensitive; for looking only to 
this life, no wonder that he watched with intense 
anxiety, and marked with infinite agony, every 
symptom that gave a warning of its close. 

Our hero was surprised to find in Lord Arling- 
ton, his fellow-traveller, and the companion of his 
adventure in the neighborhood of Terracina; but 
this circumstance, as connecting him in some mea- 
sure with the history of Agnese, gave him an 
interest in Hartley’s mind which would otherwise 
have been wanting, and made the attentions which 
his relationship in some measure required, not so 
disagreeable as they would otherwise have been 
from his knowledge of Arlington’s character. 

Hartley little thought that to Arlington he was 
indebted for the anonymous information his father 
had received of the history of Agnese, as well as 
for the sudden disappearance of Agnese herself; 
neither was he aware of the almost hatred with 
which he viewed the man, who, according to all 
human probability, was to be the heir to his title 
and his fortunes. These feelings and circum- 
etances were kept concealed in Lord Arlington’s 


own breast, but they did not the less influence his 
conduct. His hatred, for it was little short of that 
feeling, for Hartley, was unaccountable to himself; 
but he had a natural antipathy to a man whom he 
judged to be waiting wdth impatience for the title 
and fortune which he was so unwilling to resign. 
He had likewise been deeply oflTended at the pre- 
ference which the Italian girl had exhibited for 
Hartley over himself. There is nothing which 
cuts deeper into the heart of a man who has 
prided himself, all his life, on his success with the 
other sex, than the first symptoms of that prefer- 
ence which women give to younger men, and the 
painful knowledge this conveys of the decay of 
their power of pleasing, and of their influence. It 
was from Hartley that Lord Arlington had first 
learned this bitter lesson, and he had felt it loo 
deeply to forget it. It was from Agnese that he 
had first suffered this mortification, and he deter- 
mined to revenge it. 

He knew too well, however, the consequences 
of being on terms with such a woman as Lady 
Emily, not to receive her son with kindness, and 
to attempt to cultivate his intimacy, though their 
natures were so essentially distinct from each 
other; for, in spite of all his errors. Hartley pos- 
sessed a generous disposition, and was as incapa- 
ble of cold-blooded seduction as Arlington was of a 
disinterested passion. 

With Lord Orville it was different. In him Ar- 
lington found a kindred spirit of fselfishness and 
libertinism, and seemed in his society to live again 
over the days of his youth ; while Orville who 
knew much of his early history, looked upon Ar- 
lington as a model upon which a man of bonnes 
fortunes ” might form himself with advantage. The 
first meeting between Lady Orville and Lord Ar- 
lington had been avoided by the countess as long as 
manoeuvring could keep them separate ; moving, 
however, in the same cirle, this distance could not 
long be preserved. They at last met, and as a mu- 
tual glance showed at once the change in their per- 
sons, leaving barely sufficent for recognition, they 
shrunk from the contemplation ; and each exclaimed 
internally, Can this be the object which once fas- 
cinated my senses 1” 

A cold salute on the part of Arlington, whose 
feelings were always under control, and a haughty 
bow accompanied by a glance in which scorn was 
mingled with indignation, from the countess, was 
all that passed outwardly on the occasion. But 
the sight of him to whom she attributed all the 
miseries — all the degradation of her life, roused the 
demon in Lady Orvilles’s breast ; and now that he 
was again within her sphere, she determined to 
watch for some opportunity of revenge. 

The marriage of his heir with her daughter she 
knew would mortify him, but though she now' de- 
determined to leave no scheme untried to accomplish 
this, she felt it would by no means satisfy her de- 
sires for vengeance. To do this was no easy mat- 
ter, for a heart devoid of feeling shuts out so many 
possibilities of annoyance, that schemes adopted for 
this purpose are generally powerless. Lady Or- 
ville was, however, no common woman in any of 
her passions, and Lord Arlington little dreamed, in 
his contempt for her, of the power of the woman 
whose indignation was roused against him. 

Lord Arlington’s entertainments soon filled his 


98 


THE OXONIANS 


house, and as , those who shuddered at his 
gacy did not disdain to partake of his hospitality, 
the elegance of his manners, the brilliancy of his 
conversation, and consummate knowledge of man- 
kind, soon obliterated many of the prejudices against 
him. 

Men, too, of his rank and fortune, can always 
command a sufficient number of parasites around 
his table to make him pleased with himself; and 
this is one great step towards being pleased with 
the world. 

Neither his rank nor fortune, nor all the flatteries 
W'hich they commanded, however, could hide from 
Lord Arlington the mortifying reflection that he was 
no longer a young man ; and that still more mor- 
tifying certainty that he was no longer considered 
so by that sex to whom his life had been devoted. 

His rank commanded attention, but he felt that 
it was paid to his rank and not his person. Deaf 
ears were turned to his compliments — his attentions 
treated rather as parental than amatory, and every 
thing tended to prove that his day was gone by. 

In spite of all these indications, however, Lord 
Arlington would not acknowledge himself growdng 
old, or glide into those hahits.which might still have 
preserved his constitution from greater dilapidation. 
He still lived with young men, and still prided him- 
self upon living as they did. He drank with them, 
jested with them, and intrigued with them at fifty, 
in the same manner as he would have done at five- 
and-twenty ; nor perceived that he was as often their 
jest as their cofipanion ; nor would he have been 
more pleased with the praise that “ old Arlington 
was a prime fellow of his age 

Although Arlington was reduced principally to 
the vain boast of former successes to keep up his 
present character, the similarity of his pursuits 
with those of Orville soon rendered them great 
allies; an alliance which was serviceable in more 
ways than one, to a man so dissipated and extra- 
vagant as Lord Orville, and whose violent passions 
often hurried him into excesses from the effiects of 
which he sometimes found extrication difficult. 

Arlington’s life became, therefore, apparently a 
life of pleasure. He had his boxes at the opera 
and the theatres, his clubs and his mistresses; 
though his heart was so blaze that scarcely any 
pursuit could create a sensation in the stagnant 
pool of his exhausted passions, or bear any stamp 
of novelty to give them a momentary chance of 
engaging any thing more than that attention which 
mere habit had given him in an intrigue. 

Such was Lord Arlington, and such is almost 
every professed libertine, after they have lived 
through the hey-day of those youthful passions 
which may prove an apology in the early days 
of life, but which render its maturity contemptible. 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

A DEBUTAITTB 

We forget what monarch it was who offered a 
reward for a new sensation, and we have not time 


to look out for his name for the information of our 
readers; but we can easily enter into his feelings. 
Well — the world of fashion was precisely in the 
predicament of this monarch. All was apathy and 
sameness : there were no particular lions to give 
animation to parties; no foreign constellation at 
the opera or concerts; and what was still more 
extraordinary, no egregious folly or profligate yhwa;- 
pas, to excite a nine-days’ wonder, and give an 
impetus to scandal and conversation. 

The subscribers gaped over the opera, and young 
ladies languished through the quadrilles at Ah 
mack’s. The gallopade and the mazurka had not 
then given them the excitement of learning a new 
dance, and all was in a state of apathetic stagna'* 
tion. 

At this period, the despatches which our noble 

minister at found it necessary to send to the 

government, on the subject of his diplomatic mis* 
sion, were accompanied by an account of a new 
vocal debutante, who had astonished the first cir- 
cles, and excited the wonder of the musical world 
in Italy. “ II gran Maestro” had pronounced her 
to be perfect ; and she had sang with such success 
at some of the concerts, that the name of Ber- 
nardini bid fair to be celebrated with those of 
Pasta and Catalini throughout Europe. 

From the moment that this information of a new 
star in the musical hemisphere w'as bruited abroad, 
the cry that “We must have her here !” was set 
up: and the poor manager of the King’s Theatre 
.was pestered to death about “la belle Bernardini.” 
Old subscribers threatened to withdraw their sub- 
scriptions, if he did not — and new' ones offered 
themselves if he did — engage this new syren ; till 
at length out of the fatigue of resistance, he gave 
way, and his secretary for foreign affairs was des- 
patched to Italy, on a mission which had for its 
object the visit of the fair debutante to this country 
on any terms. The poor manager knew he should 
be ruined, but then he was ruined by obliging the 
Duke of B , the Earl of C , the Coun- 
tess of D , and half a hundred other titled 

persons; and who would not be honored by being 
ruined in such a cause! 

The anticipation of her arrival excited a sensa- 
tion. A hundred anecdotes were invented with 
respect to her past life and future expectations; 
some declared her the affianced bride of a prince ; 
another whispered her to be the scion of one of the 
noblest families in Europe ; a third declared her to 
be the most accomplished singer under the sun. 
But all the ingenuity and malice of scandal had, as 
yet, invented nothing that could tarnish her bright 
name as a woman. Such a rara avis was, of 
course, expected with anxiety by that w’orld of 
fashion who live only by a round of novelty and 
amusement. 

At length, la belle cantatrice arrived, and 
was scarcely unfurled from the flannels in which 
her chaperone had enveloped her, to guard 
her against the inclemencies of an English spring, 
than a hundred cards were left at her door. 
It had been stipulated by the manager’s secre- 
tary, that she should sing nowhere but at the 
opera, and that her first appearance should be 
upon the stage. The enormous terms which her 
protectors had demanded and obtained, made it 
but reasonable that the manager should have her 


THE OXONIANS. 


99 


all to himself, and possess all the chances she gave 
him of success. But what were these considera- 
tions in comparison with the eclat which her 
•* very Jirst'^ appearance would give to a private 
party 1 A small one consisting of the most emi- 
nent amateurs of the day, together with about five 
hundred other friends, was, therefore, speedily got 

up; and the Countess of , by liberality and 

persuasion, prevailed upon her protectors to permit 

their protegee to sing at House, in spite of 

tlieir engagements to the contrary. There she 
realized all that had been anticipated ; and the ma- 
nager would have had no reason to repent this in- 
fringement upon his treaty, from the celebrity that 
it gained for his prima donna, from the account 
both of her beauty and singing which went forth 
from this party, but that she caught a severe cold 
from going out too early after her arrival, which 
deferred her appearance three or four opera nights, 
during which her enormous salary w’as rigorously 
exacted by those who had the management of her 
taJents. 

Night after night every box was taken in expec- 
tation of her debut; and night after night were the 
manager’s expectations of a great receipt disap- 
pointed, by the necessity w'hich still existed for that 
unfortunate line in his bill of fare, “ In conse- 
quence of the continued indisposition,” &c. 

At length, however, the cold was better and her 
appearance was determined upon. All the world 
were on the alert. Dinners were ordered in lime 
to permit an early attendance, or deferred altogether 
till after the performance. Every box was filled ; 
the pit crammed to suffocation; Fops’ alley lite- 
rally wedged w'ith men ; and even the capacious 
gallery full to its top rows, where might be seen 
two or three of those liveries which always desig- 
nate the presence of some royal personage. 

Lord Arlington, whose senses were too use 
to feel curiosity of any description, had entered 
mechanically into the pursuit of the moment, had 
talked with others of expectations he did not 
feel, and of anxieties he did not experience. He, 
however, came with the rest of the crowd early 
enough to welcome the debutante on her first 
appearance. Hartley, not finding room in his nio- 
ther’s box, had entered Lord Arlington’s ; and they 
were amusing themselves by observing the in- 
convenience of a crowded pit, and the many strug- 
gles which were made among the polite for places 
to see the great attractions of the night. The 
overture and first act of the opera were unattended 
to, or scarcely heard, amid the general conversation 
which takes place at the Opera when no star is on 
the stage. 

At length, the bell announced the rising of the 
curtain for the second act. The buzz was instantly 
hushed into the most profound silence ; so still, in- 
deed, was the house, that the old saying, that “ you 
might have heard a pin drop,” seemed to be reali- 
zed. A slight bustle behind the scenes, a sensation 
in the coulises, heard rather than seen, announced 
the approach of the new singer; another moment 
saw her in the front of the stage, standing timidly, 
and almost fainting before such an audience as she 
had never yet witnessed, and vainly attempting 
tliat obeisance with which debutantes generally 
acknowledge the tumultuous encouragement with 
which they are received. The instant of her ap- 


pearance, handkerchiefs waved, and fans were 
beaten against kid gloves and opera-glasses, in the 
boxes ; the pit was too full to permit any great use 
of hands, but opera-glasses and feet were put into 
requisition on the occasion ; while the gallery wa« 
almost as tumultuous as that of an English theatre 
on the same good-natured occasion. 

Overcome by her excessive agitation, she would 
have sunk on the stage, had not the manager, per- 
ceiving her situation, come from the wing and suj)- 
ported ffer. As he raised her from the almost re- 
cumbent position into which her agitation had 
thrown her, her long luxuriant locks were thrown 
back, and discovered features so resplendent with 
beauty, that another loud burst of applause followed 
the first discovery of the extent of her personal 
charms. The moment her features were displayed 
to the public, Arlington and Hartley both started 
and exclaimed at the same instant, “ C’est I’Ag 
nese !” And it was indeed the fair incognita of 
Terracina who had excited so much curiosity in 
Arlington and so much interest in the bosom o! 
Hartley. 

Arlington’s emotion subsided in an instant, bu^ 
it was some minutes before Hartley could recover 
the effect which her sudden appearance had created 
He saw in her debut as a public performer the an 
nihilation of those hopes which, in spite of his bet- 
ter reason, he had still cherished, that tin>e migh‘ 
clear up the mystery with regard to Agnese, in 
such a manner as might not prelude entirely the 
idea he had entertained of making her his wife 
Here, however, was an end of these hopes ; for 
Hartley’s was not a family that was ever likely to 
consent to receive a public performer among its 
members, however correct her morals and conduct, 
or however unblemished her private character 
Such is the prejudice which even liberal people are 
sufficiently unjust to entertain with regard to those 
who, surrounded as they are by temptations, require 
still greater encouragement to continue in the ligiit 
path, and deserve much more commendation for 
virtuous conduct, than if their lot had been cast in 
the every-day career of common-place existence. 

Arlington saw what was passing in Hartley’s 
mind, and felt a species of pleasure in the contem- 
plation. He had long delighted in contemning 
every idea of virtue, and he saw that Hartley could 
not help considering her appearance on the stage 
as the first step towards that moral degradation 
which, in Italy, he had attempted to affix to the cha- 
racter of every woman receiving such an education 
as that of Agnese. As the performance proceeded. 
Hartley sickened at the applause, and shrunk from 
the effect of those efforts, the success of which 
would confirm her continuance in the profession 
she had adopted, and annihilate his hopes forever. 
Even now, should her debut be succeeded by her 
immediate retirement, he feared the obstacle which 
even one appearance would create to his wishes 
would be insurmountable. 

Arlington saw in the changing countenance of 
his young companion the depth and the sin- 
cerity of his passion, and his own family pride was 
roused at the thought that these feelings might 
be strong enough to make the obscure adventuress 
the future Lady Arlington, and the mother of child- 
ren who would inherit estates, till now ever under 
the control of the scions of legitimate aristocracy. 


100 


THE OXONIANS. 


He knew Hartley was not deficient in prided 
out it was the pride of virtue — the pride of honor 
— more than that of rank ; and he felt that his only 
chance of curing Hartley of his love was to reduce 
the character of its object. 

^ He began, therefore, at once upon this principle, 
by hinting his congratulations to Hartley on Ag- 
nese having taken a step which must tend to facili- 
tiite his wishes; for he had always made a point 
of conversing on this subject as though Hartley 
bad the intention of making her his mistress, in- 
stead of his wife. Hartley felt all these observa- 
tions severely, because he knew that Lord Arling- 
ton was only now stating those sentiments which 
would be entertained by so many. He had not, 
however, courage at this moment to combat them, 
and he, by this time, knew Lord Arlington’s prin- 
ciples, or rather his want of them, with regard to 
women, too well to attempt to subvert his opinions. 
He listened theiefore in silence, and sat through a 
performance, which was crowned with the most 
brilliant success, in spite of the timidity with which 
it was so evidently accompanied, in agony. His 
first impulse had been to quit the theatre the m6- 
ment after his recognition of Agnese, but his posi- 
tion with regard to Lord Arlington was such as 
made him wish to conceal the extent of that influ- 
ence which she possessed over his feelings. He 
felt that it was but natural that Lord Arlington 
should in some measure partake of the sentiments 
which family pride had inspired in his father; and 
he hatj latterly had his suspicions, that his sudden 
recall to England had originated in some commu- 
nication between them. 

On the fall of the curtain the cry was long and 
general for the appearance of the heroine of the 
evening ; and Hartley had the additional agony of 
seeing her led forward by the manager to face the 
gaze of the thousands who were applauding her to 
the skies. The moment she had retired, numbers 
hurried to the stage to pay their respects to the fair 
debutante. Hartley was led thither by Arlington, 
who knew the scene he would there witness, and 
who truly prognosticated its effect; for Hartley 
sickened to see the woman he loved surrounded by 
ail that was so much calculated to turn a woman’s 
head, and oppressed by the compliments and con- 
gratulations of some of the most profligate men in 
town, who consider it their privilege to annoy those 
whom they imagine their applause supports. Among 
these, the most prominent was Lord Orville ; and 
Hartley knowing his character, and dreading his 
influence, turned from the scene with disgust, and, 
in spite of Arlington, quitted the stage without 
speaking to Agnese. 

In spite of the fatigue and agitation by which she 
was oppressed, almost to fainting, she was compell- 
ed to listen to all the dull compliments and extra- 
vagant eulogiums which were poured upon her 
from all quarters. They seemed, however, to 
fall powerless upon her ear, and drew from 
her only cold replies of common-place politeness. 
Her eye seemed to wonder amid the crowd, as 
though it searched for somebody who was not there. 
As Lord Arlington approached her, a heightened 
color and increased agitation expressed her recog- 
nition, though the expression of her countenance 
was any thing but that of pleasure, and she seemed 
to cling the closer to the arm of her champerone. 


He addressed her in that tone of half familiarity 
and respect, which, while it conveys to the person 
addressed nothing with which she can be offended, 
at the same time expresses to the bystanders that 
there is more between them that meets the ear. 
How many of the reports with regard to women 
owe their origin to nothing but this profligate cox- 
combry by which puppies would convey hints of 
familiarities which never existed ! This is too 
much the case in general society ; but it is a prac- 
tice as common as it is contemptible among the 
loungers of a green-room and the frequenters of the 
“ coulisses and foyer” at the Opera, who seem to 
think themselves privileged to talk with those who 
cannot escape from their conversation, with the 
same air of familiarity that they would talk with 
their mistresses. 

From a man of Lord Arlington’s character this 
would have a double effect; and his late re- 
turn from the continent, and the evident air of re- 
cognition with which he was received, not unmixed 
with embarrassment, gave a color to surmises, in 
which Arlington himself was contemptible enough 
to find a pleasure. The substance of his delights 
had fled from his senseless grasp, but he could de- 
rive a pleasure from the shadow of them, and 
prided himself upon a reputation that a man of 
feeling and honor would have shrunk from. 

The fair debutante at length escaped from her 
persecutors, and retired with her protectors, who 
were the same couple with whom Lord Arlington 
had seen her in Italy, and who appeared not a little 
surprised and pleased at recognising him in Eng- 
land, and at the consideration with which he was 
evidently treated, as well as at the title by which 
he was addressed. 

While Agnese shrunk from the applause and 
attentions which she received, and listened with 
disgust to the fulsome compliments which were 
paid her, these people exchanged glances of trium- 
phant success, and seemed rejoiced at the accom- 
plishment of some long-cherished scheme. 

They therefore not only received but encouraged 
the attentions paid to their protegee, and did not 
seem over scrupulous as to the motives by which 
they were instigated. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

A PRIMA DONNA. 

Almost from the earliest period of her recollec- 
tion, Agnese had been under the protection of the 
couple who had superintended her education, and 
had now forced her upon the stage. A faint idea,how- 
ever, of a chamber of death, and of a pale and aged 
man kissing and confiding her to the care of some 
other person, lingered dimly in her remembrance; 
but it was more like one of the dreams of her ij>. 
fancy than reality : and what was extraordinary, 
this remembrance was always much more vivid in 
her dreams that in her waking thoughts. If, how- 
ever, it ever had any other foundation than in her 
dreams, lime had now nearly obliterated all traces 


THE OXONIANS. 


101 


of this early scene from her mind ; and all her 
infant associations were so wholly connected with 
the people with whom she had lived from the age 
of five or six, that she never looked beyond them, 
or thought of having been connected with any other 
beings than those who represented that she was tbe 
mere object of their charity, left under their care by 
a foreigner, who had promised to reclaim her, but 
bad never performed that promise. 

This however, was not the fact ; for the Eng- 
lishman by whom she had been placed under their 
superintendence had left with them an ample sum 
of money for all the expenses of a common educa- 
tion, and had bargained with them for the protec- 
tion of the child forever. This circumstance they 
never confided to her ; but appropriating the money 
to their own purposes, and representing themselves 
as her benefactors, they drew upon her gratitude 
for that afifection and devotion to which they were 
not entitled by nature, but which her affectionate 
heart and disposition were too happy to pay where 
she owned an obligation. Indeed, Agnese was a 
child who could not exist without loving; she pos- 
sessed a heart overflowing with tenderness, and 
thought no exertion too great to show her attach- 
ment to those from whom she received a kindness. 

'rhe Signor Bononi, to whose care she was con- 
fided, was one of those professors of music with 
which Italy abounds, whose talent had only made 
him the Apollo of an obscure village. By his mis- 
appropriation of the money left for the education of 
Agnese, it may be seen how little principle he pos- 
sessed ; and he was already beginning to think the 
child a burden, when her uncommon and preco- 
cious talent for the art of which he w^as professor, 
excited his cupidity, and inspired him with the idea 
that he might ultimately realize much more than 
W’ould repay all the cares and costs of the child’s 
education : while the increasing beauty of Agnese 
gave him hopes that her charms might ultimately 
be turned to his advantage. These views, and the 
astonishing improvement of the child, even under 
the little tuition which he was enabled himself to 
give her, soon reconciled Bononi and his wife to 
their infant charge. 

With such a disposition as Agnese possessed, it 
was no wonder that her protectors obtained that 
unbounded influence over her mind and actions 
W'hich they possessed ; and conscious of the necessity 
for this influence to further their schemes, they had 
omitted no opportunity to increase and confirm it. 

The professor had just enough judgment to ap- 
preciate the astonishing powers displayed by his 
pupil, and to know that she deserved a better pre- 
ceptor than himself. With this view he removed 
from his village to Milan ; and by dint of persever- 
ance, and the exhibition of the child’s talent, he 
obtained her admission as a pupil into a conserva- 
torio, where she enjoyed the advantage of some of 
the best masters in Italy. 

So precocious were the powers of Agnese at this 
early period, that she played before some of the 
fir.st people and the finest judges in Europe ; and 
Bononi and his wife began already to reap the 
benefit of her exertions. 

Her enthusiasm in the pursuit aided the instruc- 
tions she received ; and, while a child, Agnese was 
the phenomena of the musical world in the circles 

7 


which she frequeiiTed. Her protectors, however, 
had heard of the immense sums accumulated by 
singers in different parts of Eur()[)e; and the view 
of educating Agnese for a prima donna, when time 
should have added the charms of womanhood tc 
those of her musical talent, made them withdraw 
her from these infant exhibitions; and her exer- 
tions, together with the presents which had been 
made her, ha\ing already realized enough to pro- 
cure instruction, and to support them for some few 
years, Bononi withdrew his charge from public life, 
and pursued his system of improvement. 

During this period, fortunately for Agnese, she 
attracted the attention and gained the affection of 
a sister of a convent of Rome, where she practised 
the organ, and from whom her mind and heart de- 
rived great advantage. From the lips of Sister 
Theresa she imbibed principles of rectitude and 
religion, which, while they made her revolt from 
the life for which she w-as intended, inspired her 
with strength to resist its temptations, and firmness 
to regulate her conduct through its ordeal. 

Tlie talent and beauty of Agnese at length 
exceeded Bononi’.s most sanguine expectations, 
and he determined to produce her to the musical 
world. This determination was accelerated by the 
fears which he began to entertain of the influence 
of Sister Theresa, and by his dread that one 
so young and lovely might attract attention, oi 
form some attachment calculated to militate against 
the plan he had formed of realizing a large fortune 
by her exertions, before she procured any establish- 
ment for herself. 

With this feeling he had always discouraged the 
attentions and kindness which many had been in- 
clined to show to Agnese, and it was the same 
selfishness that created the coldness with which his 
thanks to Hartley for her preservation were accom- 
panied. 

The temptations held out by liOrd Arlington, 
were almost sufficient to gratify his cupidity ; as 
they, however, still fell short of what he thought 
might he produced by l;er talents, he determined 
not to swerve from his original plan ; but by taking 
the inlormation which Arlington had given, and 
adopting his fears of her attachment to Harllev, he 
had removed her suddenly and secretly out of the 
reach of both their pursuits at once. 

Bononi managed matters so well, as to create 
such a sensation by the first appearance of Agnese, 
which took place dn Florence, that she at once 
rose to the top of her profession ; and the name of 
la Bernardini, or I’Agnese, was soon bruited through 
the capitals of Europe, as a novel attraction in thw 
musical hemisphere. 

England was, however, Bononi’s first object, 
He knew what sums were lavished upon foreigri 
singers in this country; and he knew likewise tho 
empressement with which a new voice and a new 
person are followed by fashionable people from all 
sorts of motives; and he set down Loudon as iho 
hot-hed for the fdlies and fashions, from which ho 
was to realize his anticipations of fortune. 

In Florence he found f)lenty of Englishmen ol 
rank, too willing to become patrons of such ai 
debutante, and to write praises of this new const^L 
iation to the manager of the opera in London • 

. Several brought over accounts of her talents; in 


102 


THE OXONIANS. 


Fhort, every ruse was resorted to by Bononi to pro- 
cure such an engagement as would satisfy even 
his cupidity. 

Every stipulation having been made by this mu- 
sical di{^ lornatist, and agreed to on the part of the 
English directeur ; and everything signed, sealed, 
and secured, with as much formality as a treaty of 
alliance between two states, Agnese at length came 
to London, where her debut realized the most san- 
guine expectations of “her friends and the public,’^ 
and delighted every body but the poor manager, 
who was compelled to be congratulated on crowded 
houses for which he got nothing; and upon a tri- 
umphant success which put money only into the 
pocket of Signor Bononi. From the moment of 
the appearance of Agnese, her protectors became 
persons of consequence, not only in their own eyes, 
but in those of the admirers of their protegee Let- 
ters for engagements poured from all quarters — 
notes, enclosing drafts, for her to sing at private 
concerts, arrived daily; and the hall-table of the 
new prima donna was covered with the visiting- 
tickets of the first people in the land : while pre- 
sents were made, on all sides, to Bononi and his 
wdfe, who began seriously to think of following the 
example of some of their predecessors, and adopting 
the travelling title of Baron and la Baronne, to 
which they would have had quite as much right as 
many who have been received into society here, un- 
der titles to which they had no other pretension 
than their own impudence. 

Ttiose only who know the fact can imagine the 
airs which are assumed by people of this stamp, or 
the insolence with which many of our noblesse and 
gentry have been treated by them ; and few can 
imagine the parade with which they conduct them- 
selves in the engagements which they form fur their 
protegee. In most instances, this is the mere con- 
duct of those intrusted with her affairs, and does 
not arise from the singer herself; and this was the 
case with Agnese. She was completely under the 
guidance of Bononi and his wife, and passed her 
time in the cultivation of her talent, or in silent 
thoughts of the young Englishman who had deser- 
ved her gratitude by the protection he had afforded 
her, and excited the first feelings of love her young 
heart had ever experienced by his subsequent atten- 
tions; and she wondered, among all the persons 
who presented themselves, that she had never yet 
Been Hartley. 

Her conduct in public was characterized by its 
modesty, and in private by its excellence ; while 
she seemed nearly insensible to the admiration she 
excited ; and at least presunied upon it so little, that 
half the world disbelieved the stories which were 
propagated of the consequence she assumed in her 
professional arrjingements, all of which were entirely 
attributable to the vanity and folly of Banoni and his 
wife, who were making the best market of her ta- 
lents for their own emolument. Of these circum- 
stances Agnese knew nothing ; she felt herself 
bound by every tie of gratitude to devote herself to 
those to whom she considered she owed every 
thing and by their directions she was completely 
guided. 

There are a certair^ set of men about town, pos- 
sessing a certain rank in fashionable circles, either 
from birth or fortune, who think it their privilege 
to make what they call “ love'’ to every new debu- 


tante in the theatrical world. With no other feel 
ing than the eclat of the thing, these men pester 
the new singers and dancers with their attentions, 
and frequently insult them by their propositions. 
The appearance of such a woman as Agnese could 
not fail to excite all the energies of this swarm of 
coxcombs, by whom she was immediately assailed 
by all means, and all directions. Persecuted by 
them in the coulisses of the opera, and in the retir- 
ing apartments of the concert rooms, she became 
disgusted; and at length positively refused to see 
them at her own house, to which several of them 
had gained admittance by presents to Bononi and 
his wife. 

In most, if not all of these, eclat and notoriety 
were the only excitements to their attentions; but 
among them, one had conceived so violent a passion 
for her, that no sacrifice seemed too great for the 
accomplishment of his object: and this was Lord 
Orville. Struck by her beauty and talents on her 
debut, he was still more fascinated by her manners 
and conversation. Presented by Arlington, Bono- 
ni and his wife could not but receive him gracious- 
ly, and he availed himself of their avarice to en- 
joy as much of her society as they could procure 
him. 

Many of these butterflies, when they found the 
uselessness of their attentions, and discovered the 
little progress they made, dropped off one by oiie 
abusing her for the coldness of her characte^r ; 
or, still more basely, indulging in inuendoes which 
would have left their success doubtful, had they 
been uttered by any other lips than their own ' 
They all, however, affected an intimacy with her 
in public. 

it was not, however, thus with Imrd Orville; 
the more he saw of her, the more his love in 
creased ; opposition seemed only to sw'ell the tide 
of his passion ; till, in a short time, the accomplish- 
ment of his object engrossed all his time, and 
Agnese was literally persecuted by bis attentions. 

Surprised at the coldness w ith w hich he was 
received, and the indifference w'ith which his rank, 
and those privileges upon which he built his hopes, 
were considered, he at length made a confidant of 
Lord Arlington, from W’hom he learned the solu- 
tion of the enigma, in a detail of that nobleman’s 
suspicion of her love for Hartley. This was only 
to add another motive for the perseverance of 
Orville, who gloried as much in thwarting the 
wishes of, and in triumphing over another, as he 
did in the gratification of his own. He now, 
therefore, devoted himself to the accomplishment 
of his object. Bononi and his wife were pro- 
pitiated by magnificent presents ; for they had no 
objection to sell opportunities which they knew, 
from the temper of Agnese, were profitless; and 
they pocketed the bribes, while they laughed at 
their dupe. 

Orville* however, was not a man to be easily 
foiled ; his whole stock of passion had been excited 
by Agnese, and there was no attempt, however 
desperate, of which he was not capable, to aid the 
attainment of his wishes. 

In this passion of Lord Orville, Arlington saw 
the means of gratifying his hatred for Hartley, and 
his anger against Agnese; and, at the same time, 
the surest method of preventing that union at 
which his family pride revolted. 


THE OXONIANS. 


103 


He saw, too, in Orville, a temper and a disposi- 
tion so like his own, that his vanity prognosticated 
complete success, and he determined to assist him, 
to the utmost of his ability, to get Agnese into his 
power, cither through attachment, or by some 
Dieans even less justifiable. 

The similarity of character which existed be- 
tween them, had attached Arlington more to the 
society of Orville than that of any other person, 
and that kind of friend.^^hip grew up between them 
which led to a mutual confidenoe in their un- 
worthy pursuits, which were, however, with them, 
matters of triumph instead of subjects of shame. 

These two worthies, therefore, determined upon 
the ruin of Agnese; the one to gratify what he 
deemed to be an irre.sistible passion ; and the 
other to indulge a congregation of mixed feeling — 
of hatred, of mortification, and anger, for which he 
could not himself account. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

PLANS. , 

Whether the passion of love produces, in the 
aggregate, most pleasure or most pain, it would be 
very difficult to determine. That the most success- 
ful passion, even where “the course of true love 
runs smooth,” creates pain, there is no doubt; for 
the human heart is so way wand in its fancies, that 
where there are no real evils, it will create fictitious 
ones ; a thousand groundless fears imbitter the 
brightest hopes, and foundless jealousies deprive 
success of half its gratification. But of all the pains 
of which love is the occasion, perhaps that produced 
by the idea of its object being engaged in unworthy 
pursuits is the greatest. And this pang was felt 
in the utmost degree by Hartley ; for he was un- 
just enough to imbibe in some degree the prejudices 
of the world against the stage, and to consider strict 
correctness of conduct almost incompatible with its 
pursuits. 

How must the delicacy of love suffer at the idea 
of its object being nightly exposed to the criticism 
and gaze of the million, and to all the enuendoes 
and reports to which the most correct public life 
will give occasion ! How severely must it feel the 
temptations to which such a life must necessarily 
expose its object, and shrink from the exertion of 
those privileges which it is the fashion for coxcombs 
to assume in their intercourse with public per- 
formers ! 

Hartley felt all this : he knew what he had done 
himself in the first season of his folly ; and he had 
seen and recollected but too vividly, how much 
more other young men had done at the same time. 
He w'as sensible how open to insult the position of 
Agnese placed her, and yet felt himself so circum- 
stanced, that he dared offer neither protection nor 
advice. 

Indeed, he felt the eyes of Arlington and his fa- 
mily to be upon him; and he dreaded the ridicule 
of the one almost as much as he feared giving pain 
to the other. 


Under these circumstances, he had forborne to 
seek any more than one interview with Agnese ; 
and though every opera night w'as a night of agony 
to him, from the knowledge he possessed, that she 
was not only exposed to the public gaze, but sub- 
mitted to the attention of every libertine about town 
behind the scenes, yet he never ventured within the 
walls of the theatre. 

In the only interview with which he had indulg- 
ed himself, he had fairly and plainly stated the cir- 
cumstances and prejudices of his family ; the bar- 
rier which her public life had raised to their union ; 
and could only deplore the excess of his love, and 
the despair he himself entertained of the accom- 
plishment of his wishes. The repugnance of Ag- 
nese to her profession was quite equal to his own ; 
but she was supported in her pursuit by the know- 
ledge that she was performing a duty to her early 
benefactors; and though she loved as firmly and 
disinterestedly as Hartley himself, and deplored as 
much as he did the obstacles to their union, yet 
she betrayed sufficient pride to make him perceive 
that she would never entertain a thought of enter- 
ing any fiimily, where she was not to be received 
with the most perfect welcome. 

Comparing the conduct of Hartley with that of 
others who had sought, by their attention, to win 
her favor, he could not but rise in her estimation 
by the contrast; and the result of this interview 
was only to increase their esteem for each other, 
and their mutual regret at the necessity for their se- 
paration. 

Had Hartley sought for any future interviews, 
he could not have obtained them; for Arlington 
had so wrought upon Bononi and his wife, that 
they had determined to exclude him as much as 
possible from all private intercourse with their pro- 
tegee. 

Love is of all passions the most difficult to sub- 
mit to the circumstances by which it is surrounded ; 
and thus, though both Hartley and Agnese felt that 
it would be for the happiness of each other to con- 
quer their mutual passion, they found this to be 
impossible, and still resigned themselves to its in- 
fluence. 

Much as Hartley felt at the assiduities to which 
he knew that Agnese must be subject, he would 
have experienced much more agony, had he been 
aware of the passions and plots of Lord Orville, 
and of the assistance rendered to him by Lord Ar- 
lington. His feelings, however, were sufficiently 
strong to deprive life of any pleasure, and to unfit 
him for all the business into which he was entering. 
His family saw this ; and while they admired his 
conduct under the peculiar circumstances in which 
he was placed, they still trembled for his resolution, 
and persuaded him to quit London, and again try 
the effects of absence. 

In the mean time Lady Orville, amazed at the 
little effect of her own manmuvres and Lady So- 
phia’s charms, on the obdurate heart of her friend’s 
son, began to give little hints to Lady Emily of 
Lady Sophia’s passion for Hartley, and of the in- 
roads it was making on her health and happiness. 
She knew this was the most effectual way of work- 
ing upon Lady Emily to aid her in her plans. That 
lady, however, in the sincerity of her sorrow for 
what she deemed a hopeless passion, disclosed, in 
confidence, the unhappy attachment of Hartley for 


104 


THE OXONIANS. 


the fair debutante, and detailed the whole of the 
little romance, which had led to their first know- 
ledge of each other. 

Perceiving, as she thought, in this |:)assion, the 
only obstacle to the accomplishment of her own 
and her daughter’s wishes, she determined to use 
her utmost endeavors to remove it ; and judging 
of the virtue of Agnese by that of others in the 
same situation, and perhaps by that of herself, she 
had no doubt but that the temptations by which 
she was surrounded would soon prevent the possi- 
bility of such a union as she dreaded ; for she had 
too thorough a knowledge of the little care which 
either of her own children had for her wishes, to 
imagine that Lady Emily’s son would in reality 
sacrifice a predominant passion out of filial affec- 
tion or respect for his family. Lest, however, the 
temptations on which she depended should not 
prove sufficiently strong, she began to have re- 
course to detraction, to degrade the character of 
Agnese in the estimation of the world, knowing 
that the reputation of vice is sometimes more po- 
tent in its effect than vice itself. 

Remembering Lord Arlington’s family pride, she 
even condescended to add his influence to the success 
of her attempts, by artfully describing her own and 
liady Emily’s fears that Hartley might at length 
think seriously of such a union. Lord Arling- 
ton’s and Lady Orville’s were kindred minds ; and 
though they despised each other, they had no ob- 
jection to an alliance which had the same object in 
view ; and Lord Arlington- having too little respect 
for the countess, to be delicate in the species of the 
confidence he had placed in her, actually quieted 
her fears by detailing a scheme on the part of a 
young nobleman, the success of which would com- 
pletely prevent the catastrophe, which he acknow- 
ledged he dreaded quite as much as the Hartley 
family themselves. 

Lady Orville was of course, cautious to hide her 
own object fron Arlington’s knowledge, while he 
was quite as cautious in concealing that it was her 
own son whose passion he had promised to assist. 
Thus mutually deceiving each other in their sepa- 
rate objects, they both joined to effect the same 
dishonorable end. In the meantime Orville’s pas- 
sion was daily increasing, till at length he seemed 
to live only on his hopes of success, which he was 
determined to accomplish at all events. Conscious, 
however, that while her bosom was inclined In 
Hartley’s favor, any abrupt declaration of his 
passion would have an effect contrary to that which 
he desired, and tend before he had attained any in- 
fiuence, only to put her on her guard, he conten- 
ted himseT with those perpetual though silent atten- 
tions, which win their way so much with a woman 
of delicate feelings, and by keeping away every 
other competitor for her favor ; while he replied to 
the bandinage of his friends in such a manner as to 
confirm the suspicions at which they only hinted. 

'Lhe presents made to Bononi by Lord Orville 
were quite enough to enlist him and his wife into 
his favor, and they facilitated as much as lay in 
their power his interviews with Agnese. Bononi 
had no objections to sell opportunities by which he 
knew nobody could profit ; while he pocketed the 
bribes which were offered him, and laughed in his 
s-leeve at the dupes who were deceived by him. 

All this, however, contributed to lower the name 


of Agnese in public estimation ; and Hartley waa 
condemned to the agony of seeing paragraphs hint- 
ing at liaisons which never existed, and detailing 
circumstances w'hich never occurred. For such is 
the glorious liberty of the press in this country, 
that no reputation is safe from its effects, while 
ilefence is as perilous as the attack. 

Orville and Arlington managed all this: they 
considered every thing that occurred as engines 
operating to facilitate their schemes. Lady Orville 
also rejoiced in every thing that contributed to di- 
minish the character of her whom she could not but 
consider as her daughter’s rival ; as the less she was 
held in public estimation, the more was the remote 
chance decreased that the Hartley family would 
ever sanction their son’s attachment. 

Thus was Agnese made the innocent victim of 
detraction, her name becoming sullied by the vena- 
lity of her protectors, and her reputation attacked 
at the very moment that her life was perfectly ex- 
emplary. 

Hartley heard and saw all this, without the 
power of ascertaining the truth or remedying the 
evil; and Agnese herself was, of course, insensible 
to the existence of the scandal, and conscious of 
her own innocence, never dreamed of the detrac- 
tion of which she was the subject. 

Lover after lover was dismissed or tired out by 
her apparent insensibility, while she pursued her 
career, rising in her professional attraction, and her 
protectors increasing in the enormous profits they 
derived from her labors : profits that soon deter- 
mined Bononi and his wife to prevent her marriage 
with any one, and that made them regret the os- 
tentatious charity which had induced them to 
divulge that she was not their own child. 

Her ideas of gratitude were, however, sufficiently 
powerful to make her obedience to their wishes 
quite as great as though she had really been their 
daughter ; and the only relief she experienced amid 
the pain of pursuit, in her success, was the plea- 
sure she had in contributing to their indepen- 
dence. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

A TIRTUOUS ACTRESS. 

♦ 

There is scarcely any thing more difficulf 
than for a beautiful woman to find a friend. Hei 
attractions are too powerful to confine the feelings 
of the one sex within those bounds prescribed 
by disinterested friendship ; and those of the other 
are too much under the influence of envy to per- 
mit them to view the beauty of another with- 
out the sensations of a rival. Personal attraction, 
under all circumstances, has always too much influ- 
ence on our passions to permit the free exercise of 
an unbiased judgment. In this position was Ag- 
nese ; surrounded by admirers, she had none she 
could call friend. Her protectors themselves were 
so much absorbed by their avarice, that all they 
thought of was making the most of her talents ; 
and perceiving the more she was the fashion the 


THE OXONIANS. 


105 


easier their object was accomplished, they encou- 
raged all the attentions paid to her, and seemed 
careless as to the intentions or principles of the 
many who sought her favor, or of the notoriety 
which such attentions were calculated to produce. 

They had found that, in England, the talent 
which could ensure amusement would always com- 
mand success, independently of character; and, 
indeed, had even heard of instances where its 
very loss had produced the desired result, and 
where an infamous notoriety had done the work of 
genius, and thrown its possessor into celebrity and 
fortune. 

Those persons of her owm sex who patronized 
Agnese, thought of her only as her presence at 
their parties gratified their vanity ; they never con- 
sidered her as a young and inexperienced woman, 
thrown into a perilous situation in a strange coun- 
try, to whom advice might be useful, and whom 
they might, by a little kindness, preserve from 
that which had been the fate of so many in her 
situation. 

There was, however, one w^ho interested herself 
greatly in the fate and conduct of Agnese, although 
she had never invited her to her parties, or admit- 
ted her to her house — and this was Lady Emily 
Hartley. Loving her son as she did, she could not 
be indifferent to her who had so far influenced his 
fate as to create an attachment which it would at 
any rate, take much time to eradicate ; and she re- 
solved to watch the course of Agnese in the peril- 
ous path into which her pursuits had thrown her; 
first, On account and through fears that she natur- 
ally had of her influence over her son; and subse- 
quently, from the interest which her exemplary 
conduct, in such a position inspired. 

She saw Agnese surroundi?d by flatterers, without 
giving way to vanity ; by lovers, without the possi- 
bility of a stigma being cast upon her reputation ; 
and preserving all the artless modesty of nature, 
amid an enthusiasm of admiration that would have 
intoxicated any wmman possessed only of a com- 
mon mind. 

The manner in which she had repressed atten- 
tions which she deemed it dishonorable to encou- 
rage, had procured for her the respect of the very 
persons who had paid them so unsuccessfully; and 
though her fair fame could not escape the attacks 
with which of late years, editors have thought it 
necessary to season the columns of their papers, 
those who knew the conduct and life of Agnese, 
were sensible of the falsehood of those attacks. 

What Lady Emily heard of her in society was 
confirmed by tbe information Mr. Hartley gleaned 
among the men at the clubs, where it is pretty well 
known that all the aventurts du jour are as tho- 
roughly canvassed by a set of idle loungers, as 
they ever were over the tea-table of any of those 
scandal-loving sf)inste''s, who allow immaculate 
characters to none but their parrots and their 
cats. 

Although the accounts which they received from 
all quarters, thus interested Mr. and Lady Emily 
Hartley in favor of Agnese, the merit of its object 
increased their anxiety about the attachment of 
their son, and made them almost involuntarily 
keep a closer watch upon lys actions. 

But for this there was no occasion; Hartley loved 
Agnese with too true an affeciior to run the risk 


of introducing her into hi© family without their 
entire approbation ; he loved her too well to hazar^* 
her subjection to the slightest humiliation ; while 
she had too just a sense of propriety to encourage 
or permit the visits of one who, she felt, had such 
a firm possession of her heart. Indeed, her at- 
tachment to Hartley was so strong that, indepen- 
dently of the correctness of her principle, it would 
have been sufficient to have preserved her from 
temptations to which ner situation exposed her. 

With such an attachment, and with a mind and 
heart so constituted, it may be easily imagined that 
the attentions of Lord Orville, insidious as they 
were produced but little effect. Used* to conquest 
in quarters where public opinion placed a far 
higher standard of virtue than it allows to an ac- 
tress, he was surprised and mortified at the little 
progress he made, and many were the consulta- 
tions held between himself and Arlington as to the 
best method of reducing this hitherto impregnable 
fortress. 

In this pursuit it is easy to find a motive for the 
perseverance of Lord Orville, whose violent pasr 
sions were so much engaged in the attainment of 
his object; but it is very difficult to understand the 
almost demoniac determination with which Arling- 
ton aided him in all his schemes. With Orville 
there was the hope of gratification, the anticipa- 
tion of a triumph: but with Arlington there was 
nothing but a sentiment of revenge, caused by the 
first mortification he had been condemned to en- 
dure, and by that feeling of family pride which 
would induce him to aid in the ruin of the object 
by which he feared it might be infringed. 

The conduct, however, of Agnese, baffled all 
their attempts. The experience of Arlington was 
as useless as the tenderness and passion of Orville 
were ineffectual. 

It was in vain they laid plan after plan ; the pru- 
dence of Agnese baffled them all: and in some 
proportion that their hopes of success diminished, 
did Arlington’s fears of Hartley’s marrying her in- 
crease. Lady Orville, also, from the continued 
coldness of Hartley to Lady Sophia, began to fear 
the influence of his passion for Agnese was too 
great to permit the success of her schemes, and she 
began most earnestly to wish for her fall. The 
confidence which Lady Emily had reposed in the 
countess had so far excited her curiosity, that, in 
one of her letters to her friend, the “ divorcee,'’ 
she had desired her to procure and write to her all 
the particulars she could learn respecting her story ; 
and about this time a letter brought intelligence 
upon this subject which made her eyes sparkle with 
the hope of that revenge which she had so long 
determined to wreak upon the head of Arlington. 
The information this letter contained, suggested a 
method for the accomplishment of this long-pro- 
jected scheme of vengeance, in a manner that her 
most sanguine wishes could never have anticipated. 
She concealed the contents of this letter within her 
own breast ; and in her anxiety for the grati- 
fication of her hatred, forgetting every thing that 
was due to her sex, she urged Lord Arlington to 
the completion of the ruin of Agnese, with a per- 
severance that astonished that nobleman. 

As he w'ould detail to her his hopes of success, 
she would fix him with one of her looks, in which 
it was difficult for her to conceal the malicious 


106 


THE OXONIANS. 


triumph with which she received the information 
he afforded her of their progress. A diabolical 
pleasure seemed to accompany this accomplishment 
of her vengeance, at the same time that she hoped 
to accelerate her wishes with regard to the esta- 
blishment of her daughter. 

We have observed, that in the midst of the admi- 
ration she inspired, Agnese had no friend. It was 
in vain that she looked around through all the circle 
who flattered and applauded her, for one in whom 
she could place that confidence which had hitherto 
been given to the Sister d'heresa in Italy. Orville 
had observed this wish, and had striven his utmost 
to persuade her to place this confidence in him, i 
and to become the person by whose advise she 
would be guided. But it was one of her own sex 
that he saw she wanted ; and both Arlington and 
himself felt how important an addition to their 
powers it would be, if this friendship and confidence 
could be directed to any quarter which they could 
command. 

Men with such means in their power as Orville 
and Arlington, are never long in finding abettors in 
any scheme they may project; and they saw in 
Mrs. Wheeler a woman who was every way calcu- 
lated to promote their present object. 

Mrs. Wheeler was one of those women, who, 
lost themselves to every sense of female virtue, 
conceive its existence in another a tacit reproach to 
themselves; and who derive a pleasure in lending 
their aid to reduce others of their sex to their own 
level. She had herself been beautiful and well 
educated, and had pa-^sed her earlier days as gov- 
erness in several fashionable families, where her 
schemes to form a matrimonial establishment, had 
ended in her own betrayal and sul>sequent deser- 
tion. Her passions had been too high for her prin- 
ciples; and she fell, stung with the reflection, that 
she had lalien the victim of her attempts to entrap 
others. She was not one of those women whose 
error had been confined to a solitary lap.se from the 
paths of virtue : with her, vice became a principle 
of action, and the gratification of her passions the 
main-spring of her existence. Ultimately succeed- 
ing by her blandishments in attracting the attention 
of Mr. Wheeler, whose daughter she had been en- 
gaged to educate, she contrived so to impose upon 
his weakness, that he made her his wife. He thus 
})laced a tyrant at the head of his family, to whose 
violent passions and profligate conduct he soon be- 
came a victim, and died with no other revenge than 
cutting her off from every thing but her own join- 
ture. This was just sufficient for her to keep up a 
moderate establishment ; and she soon figured a 
Lady Orville of a lower grade. Her house became 
the rendezvous of a certain set of females, whose 
conduct had shut them out in a great measure from 
respectable society ; and of young men of rank, 
lashion, and wealth, who were glad of the freedom 
which such an establishment as that of Mrs. Whee- 
ler afforded. Her parties were therefore made the 
medium of intrigue; and there were lew females 
who frequented them, who were not open to any 
proposition that might be addressed to them ; while 
a marriage certificate was not at all an essential 
passport into the circle of her evening coteries. 

Mrs. Wheeler found her account in a life of this 
sort. In its pursuit she tried to keep her carriage, 
and her box at the opera, and to elbow her betters 


in the rush-room, if s- e could not meet them else- 
where. Lord Arlington had been one of her ear- 
liest acquaintances ; and Lord Orville had of late 
years been among the most constant attendants of 
her parties; and both of them now cast their eyes 
towards this woman as a fit coadjutor in their 
schemes. With such a person much delicacy was 
j not, of course, necessary; and it was soon deter- 
mined that she should seek the acquaintance, and 
try to win the confidence, of Agnese and her pro- 
tectors. 

Educated for a governess, Mrs. Wheeler was an 
accomplished French and Italian scholar, a toler- 
1 able musician, and so great an adept in the art of 
hypocrisy, that she could assume all the gentleness 
of her sex at pleasure. 

An introduction to the Bononi’s was easily pro- 
cured ; and by attentions and presents she soon 
won upon them, while by a marked kindness and 
an appearance of sympathy, which she well knew 
how to assume, she soon also gained the affection 
of Agnese. 

Feeling severely, as she did, the absence of the 
only female friend she had ever possessed, she 
received with pleasure the proffered attentions of 
Mrs. Wheeler, and was soon won by the maternal 
kindness which characterized her conduct, to look 
upon her as a friend. Mrs. Wheeler, by her arts 
and blandishments, soon improved this feeling into' 
affection, and became so much the possessor of her 
confidence, that all the time not devoted to the 
cultivation or pursuit of her profession was spent 
in her society. 

This was precisely what Lord Orville had wish- 
ed ; and he soon became impatient to profit by 
Mrs. Wheeler’s success. This was not, however, 
so easy a task as either of them imagined. It was 
in vain that Mrs. Wheeler sounded the heart, 
or rather the inclinations of her young friend, 
or threw out hints and inuendoes about Lord 
Orville ; they made no impression on the heart of 
Agnese, and she was afraid to proceed farther, lest 
by alarming her principle, she should open her 
eyes too clearly to the motives which made 
Mrs. Wheeler cultivate her friendship. 

The more correct, however, that Mrs. Wheeler 
found the principles of Agnese, the more bitter re- 
proach did she feel them to be to the conduct 
of her own life, and the more determined was she 
in her endeavors to subdue and degrade her. 

Had Agnese been differently placed, she would, 
perhaps, sooner have seen this, and appreciated the 
real character of her pretended friend ; but, de- 
prived of all kinds of female friendship, and meet- 
ing female society only in the crowds where she 
was professedly engaged, she was deceived by 
Mrs. Wheeler’s kindness into a belief of her ex- 
cellence ; and her heart feeling the necessity of 
the friendship of one of her own sex, she easily 
yielded her affections to an artful woman, whose 
only object was to betray her. She therefore 
spent a great part of her leisure time at the house 
of Mrs. Wheeler, where, of course, every opportu- 
nity was afforded for the prosecution of Lord Or- 
ville’s addresses. 

In the meantime her intimacy with such a wo- 
man did not pass unnoticed. By Lady Emily it 
was heard with pain, and by indifferent persons 
with a sneer, and with the usual observation of 


THE OXONIANS. 


1P7 


“what else could you expect and thus Lord 
Orville was gradually obtaining the cretlit of suc- 
cess, without being one jot nearer to the accom- 
plishment of his end. 

It was in vain that Mrs. Wheeler was enabled 
by the liberality of Arlington and Orville, to spread 
out those allurements which are generally so se- 
ductive to young people, or in vain attempted 
to undermine her principles by those insidious seii- 
tiinents which she knew so well how to introduce, 
there was an inherent sense of right and wrong 
in the mind of Agnese, which baffled all these 
common attempts at seduction. 

As the season was, however, now drawing to its 
close, it was determined that some decisive blow 
should be struck, that should, at any rate, tend to 
the fruition of Lord Orville’s wishes, and place an 
insurmountable barrier to any union with Hartley. 
Lord Arlington was urged to the speedier adop- 
tion of this measure, by insidious hints, purposely 
throwm out by Lady Orville, that both Lady Emily 
and Mr. Hartley were far less averse than formerly 
to the match ; atid thus she hoped, at the same 
time that she gratified her revenge, to promote her 
own projects. 



CHAPTER XXXVIIL 

A PLOT. 

While Lascelles had been hurrying to his own 
destruction, Arlington and Orville were plotting the 
destruction of Agnese. Every thing that wealth 
could procure, every thing that art could devise, 
every thing that the experience of the one and the 
passion of the other could suggest, was put in re- 
quisition to accomplish their purpose ; nor was 
Lady Orville backward in her attempts to excite 
Lord Arlington in a project in which she had her 
own revenge to gratify, and her own private project 
of ambition to accomplish. 

8till, however, Lord Orville made no progress'- in 
her affections; her whole heart was devoted to the 
passion which she wnis trying in vain to eradicate 
as hopeless ; and though the name of Hartley 
never passed her lips in any of her communica- 
tions with Mrs. Wheeler, yet that lady’s experience 
in her sex soon discovered the secret passion which 
preyed upon her, and prognosticated that Lord Or- 
ville would never succeed in his pursuit by fair 
means. Orville feigned to acknowledge this bitter 
truth, while hie cursed the plain dealing of the devil 
who told him of it, and urged him to other mea- 
sures. 

As the season was now near its close, the pro- 
fessional engagements of Agnese were not so nu- 
merous; and it was determined that Mrs. Wheeler 
should tempt her to a country excursion, for which 
the weak state of her health, arising from anxiety 
and fatigue, formed quite a sufficient apology. 

A cottage in a retired spot, about five or six 
miles from London, was therel'ore taken as a coun- 
try residence, and Mrs. Wheeler established as its 
inistress fSituated at a considerable distance from 


any other house, enclosed towards the road by high 
garden walls, and entirely etjcornpassed by the 
grounds and garden at the back, which led close to 
the river, it seemed a spot particularly adapted to 
the infamous purpose for which it was hired. Here 
Mrs. Wheeler held several of her nightly orgies of 
her set; and here it was determined that she should 
inveigle Agnese, under the pretence of benefiting 
her health ; and Orville determined she should not 
quit the place without the accomplishment of his 
purpose. 

Lady Orville knew every movement of Mrs. 
Wheeler and Lord Arlington, who were the only 
two that appeared in the affair, while Orville re- 
mained in the back ground ; but she was at a loss 
to guess who could be the lover of Agnese; and 
from the mystery with which the matter was 
treated by Lord Arlington in his conversations with 
her on the subject, at length really began to imagine 
that it was some illustrious person of the realm for 
whom Arlington thus condescended to exert the 
power of his experience, and to become an abettor 
instead of a principal. If any thing could have 
made Arlington sink still lower in her estimation, 
it would have been his conduct in this alTair ; 
for there is no degradation equal to that of being 
the caterer for the vicious pleasures of another. It 
can find an apology in no friendship; no principle 
can be found to palliate it; and if there is any one 
thing that can degrade a man in the esteem, either 
of his own or the other sex, it is thus lending him- 
self to the vices of others. 

During this period, Lord Orville paid every at- 
tention to Agnese that circumstances permitted, 
and allowed her to see the admiration she had ex- 
cited, without ever offending her by its expres- 
sions. 

Lord Arlington had been frequently surprised at 
the interest Lady Orville seemed to lake in the 
success of their schemes; but attributed it, in his 
letters to Villars, to that love which all the fallen 
of the sex have to reduce others to their own level. 
In these letters he described the progress of their 
schemes for the ruin of Agnese, almost with the 
same zeal that he had formerly described his own 
intrigues to the same friend. Indeed, in s})ite of 
the many high qualities of his mind, and of those 
attainments which rendered him one of the most 
accomplished men of the day, this wretched man 
was dwindling into one of the most degraded of 
human beings. He felt the insecurity of his foot- 
ing in society — he envied the pleasures he could 
no longer enjoy — and he sought lo preserve the 
favor of the circle in which he mixed only by the 
magnificent entertainments, which were annoy- 
ances to him, and by a profusion of luxuries, which 
were spreail in vain to tempt his own satiated ap- 
petite. He had a sufficient knowledge of the world 
to see that his only claim to ap[)arcnt respect rested 
upon these adventitious circumstances, and he was 
content to purchase the appearance of that which 
he was sensible could no longer exist in reality. 
He had felt a kind of reflected excitement in aid- 
ing the pursuit of Orville; and in his determina- 
tion to prevent the possibility of Hartley’s marrying 
Agnese, he had perhaps proceeded farther, in the 
aid he had given and promised Orville, than he 
originally intended. But having once said the 
thing should be, he was as pertinacious in its ac- 


108 


THE OXONIANS. 


cornplishrnont, as he was formerly in affairs of his 
own. 

Lord Orville’s passion for A^neso, however, now 
became too violent for him to control, and he urged 
M rs. Wheeler no longer to def»‘r the opportunity 
which he now determined the cottage should afford 
him. 'I'his, however, required all the lady’s deli- 
cacy and dexterity of nranagetnent. The old peo- 
ple were invited at fir.st to accompany her: then 
there was a method to he invented to prevent 
them putting their intention in execution ; and 
Agnese was to be persuaded to make the excursion 
without tliein. 

Every thing conspired to aid their wishes ; the 
day w’as fixed for the visit; the old people were 
detained by circumstances in which an investment 
of part of their property was involved. Agnese 
was persuaded not to ;forego her visit to the coun- 
try ; hut even agreed to spend two or three days 
with her friend, in the retirement of her cottage ; 
and it was determined that Lord Orville should be 
likewise a guest, unknown to Agnese; and, during 
the continuance, of the visit, it w’as to be his own 
blame if he did not accomplish a purpose to which 
the convenient Mrs. Wheeler was to lend every 
facility. 

Lord Arlington, with an unabated and deter- 
miiied pertinacity, for which he could not account 
to himself, interfered in and saw to every arrange- 
ment; and was so anxious, on the day fixed for 
the visit of the unfortunate victim of their joint 
villany, that he acluaily rode in the direction of 
the cottage, to ascertain by his own eyes, that 
Agnese had actually placed herself in the house 
of Mrs. Wheeler. 

Of this he was very soon assured by meeting 
them on the road to the cottage; and he imme- 
diately galloped otf to Orville to inform him of the 
sutwss of their schemes, and to urge him to the 
final completion that very night; a proposition to 
which Lord Orville’s inclinations were but too 
prompt to agree. It was determined, therefore, 
that Orville should dine at the cottage, and, instead 
of departing when he took his leave in the even- 
ing, should remain concealed somewhere in the 
house, till the retirement of the household should 
afford him a fair opportunity. 

Some evil genius seemed to lend its aid to the 
accomplishment of this diabolical scheme, since 
every thing conspired to its success. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

A DISCOVERT. 

That part of the Tmndon winter-season was now 
come, when it is ditficult to shut out the broad 
glare of daylight from our nightly dinner parties. 
All the country was one universal bloom of loveli- 
ne.ss ; but the orgies of the season, in town, were 
not yet passed ; although the lateness of the setting 
8un, and the early period that gave the world again 
to daylight, scarcely allowed sufficient hours of 
darkness for their enjoyment. 


On the day in question, the day fixed for the at- 
tempt, and intended to be crowned by the accom- 
plishment of this nefarious scheme against the in- 
nocence and happiness of a lovely being, deserving 
the best, instead of the worst, at the hands of all 
who knew her, Arlington was of course engaged 
to one of the thousand-and-one dinner parties, 
where a lord, let him be whom he will, is generally 
a welcome guest. Having ascertained, however, 
beyond a doubt, that Agnese had fallen into the 
snare spread for her by Mrs. Wheeler, and that she 
had actually accompanied her to the house which 
this trio had hired to be the scene of her ruin, he 
turned his horse’s head homeward, with the inten- 
tion of dressing for his party. 

In his slow ride to Audley Square, Lady Orville’s 
landau passed him in Park Lane, and she kissed 
her hand to him “ en passant,” while, as their eyes 
met for moment, a smile seemed to play upon her 
still handsome features, accompanied by a look of 
triumph, that made Arlington turn away with dis- 
gust, and an internal exclamation of — “ D — n the 
woman, she rejoices more in the ruin of one of her 
own sex than we do !” 

Whether his excitement had subsided, in conse- 
quence of the success of their scheme having left 
him nothing else to do ; whether his spirit and 
mind winced under the degrading recollection, that 
he was dwindled from the principal into the de- 
graded agent of another; or whether some internal 
recollections, and some but half-stifled qualms of 
conscience, made him unwilling, or unable, to meet 
the eyes of his fellow-creatures in .social intercourse 
in the midst of that society whose laws he had so 
frequently violated, and made him only fit company 
for himself — we are not in the secret : but from 
some one of these causes, or perhaps all of them 
united, he determined to remain at home, where he 
could hear the first intelligence from the cottage, 
and he gave La Tour orders to have his dinner 
served in the library, and to be denied to every 
body. Seeing his master in a state of agitation, 
quite unlike his usual cold and phlegmatic manner, 
La Tour ventured to recommend that he should not 
dine alone; but restless as x-^rlington was, he felt 
that he should be more at ease by himself than in 
society. Besides, abroad he might encounter Lady 
Orville, and to such a meeting he, at this moment, 
felt a peculiar repugnance. The expression of her 
face as she passed him in Park Lane still lingered 
on his memory, and in spite of himself, rendered 
him uneasy, though there was no interpretation 
that he could give to it that seemed to warrant the 
sensation it excited. La 'Pour’s remonstrance was 
therefore useless, and a dinner was .served in the 
library. 

The meal was finished ; his easiest fauteuil was 
wheeled just within the influence of a fire which 
blazed in the splendid chimney-piece more as an 
adjunct to cheerfulness than as being necessary for 
warmth, and Lord Arlington was left to his Bor- 
deaux and to his reflections. 

Shuddering under the influence of galling re- 
flections, and more than usually oppressed by his 
continual fear of death. Lord Arlington filled and 
drained bumper after bumper, and summoned to 
his assistance all that talent for ridicule, by vviiich 
he had so frequently overturned the arguments of 
others, in hopes it would quiet his own conscience. 


THF OXONIANS. 


109 


&■— rrr=. •ir.rr ' . .. . . . — _ 

The fatigue of his thoughts, together witli the 
effect of the wine, at length induced a feverish 
sleep, and he sunk back, exhausted by their influ- 
ence, into an uneasy slumber. 

The stream of his sleeping fancies followed, how- 
ever, the current of his waking thoughts. Circum- 
stances long since forgotten, or attempted to be for- 
gotten, came before his mind’s eye in full array, with 
all the vividness of recent occurrence. Adventure 
after adventure ; perils, pleasures, crimes — and 
every peril and every pleasure had been a crime — 
arose one after another to his fancy, which, like a 
magic lantern, presented scene after scene, till his 
whole lile appeared before him, aixl uninfluenced 
by his waking sophistry, appeared in colors which 
made him shrink with horror at the multiplicity of 
guilt by which it had been characterized. 

In the midst of this cosmorama, in which another 
and another victim of his unbridled passions still 
appeared before him, came the gentle shade of his 
much-injured wife, who wdth tears and supplica- 
tions, claimed at his hand their child, which appear- 
ed in the distance perishing under the weapon of 
a being which resembled himself ; the dagger was 
already uplifted; — the breast of the victim was bar- 
ed; he rushed forward to save her, when the figure 
that resembled himself suddenly changed, with that 
facility of transformation which is the characteristic 
of our sleeping fancies, into the figure of Lady Or- 
ville, who plunged the dagger into his own breast. 
A loud knocking at the door roused the sleeper, and 
rescued Lord Arlington from the horrors of his 
dream ; but he had scarcely recovered his courage, 
when the library door opened, and Lady Orville 
was ushered into the room. Lord Arlington almost 
started as he saw her ; she seemed like the person- 
ification of the horrors he had experienced, and he 
almost expected to see her lealizc his dream. 

As the servant closed the door and retired. Lady 
Orville’s eyes wandered round the s[)lendid apart- 
ment; her mind seemed oppres.sed with recollec- 
tions which that look appeared to engender, and her 
silence was so impressive that Lord Arlington could 
scarcely perform the common civilities of his house, 
or repress the curse which quivered on his lips 
at the folly of his servant for admitting such a 
visiter. 

“ Use no ceremony with me, Lord Arlington. To 
her whose life has been the victim of your violated 
oaths, ceremony and politeness are but added insult, 
and Cecilia Devereux will never be seated in the 
house of Lord Arlington.” Arlington attempted to 
speak, but she prevented him. “ I am thinking of 
the last time I was in this apartment ; you^ my 
Lord, may forget it, because it is convenient for 
your conscience to forget vows which you then call- 
ed heaven to witness, and which you have since vi- 
olated. I cannot forget it; for it was that hour of 
crime which gave its color to all my future exis- 
tence. Then you were in the midst of youth and 
health ; now you are overtaken by premature impo- 
tence and decrepitude — with all the vices and hor- 
rors of age, without one respectable accompaniment 
as a palliative. I was then artless, and but for you, 
innocent — ^^what I am now, you have made me — 
and—” 

“Lady Orville!” cried Arlington. 

“ Silence, my Lord — you had then your triumph 
— if to trample upon a broken heart that loved you, 


was triumph ; if to become the betrayer of the in- 
nocence that trusted you, was triumph ; if the basest 
falsehood that ever sullied the lips or blackened the 
heart of man, was triumph — it was yours. My 
hour of triumph is come. My vengeance hath 
only slept till now* !” 

“Your vengeance! Nay, nay. Lady Orville,” 
interrupted Arlington, in some measure recovering 
his usual presence of mind, “ these threats are un- 
worthy of a woman of the world.” 

“ A woman of the world ! and who made me that 
woman of the wmrld ? But reproaches, as you say, 
are idle. My time of triumph is come, and you 
shall feel it — feel it while you are reflecting whth 
the pleasure which demons only can enjoy, in the 
ruin of innocence. My Lord, here we need not 
wear our masks ; they cannot hide our hearts from 
each other. You have for months used the utmost 
of your power to lure Agnese into the snare into 
which she has at last fallen ; you have done your 
utmost to reduce her to that level from which you 
know the heir to your proud earldom would not 
raise her; and you have done this under the influ- 
ence of a paltry pride, of a demoniac desire of ven- 
geance against a woman who had mortified you. 
These were your motives.” 

“ Devil !” said Lord Arlington, “ did you not as- 
sist me r’ 

“ I did, I did ; but from a nobler motive than the 
one by which your base nature was instigated,” 
replied Lady Orville ; “from a motive of revenge 
against the perfidy of the basest creature that ever 
bore the name of man. That Agnese, that woman 
whom you have thrown into the arms of a liber 
tine, who is at this moment perhaps struggling in 
the grasp of some villainous companion of your own, 
or is shrinking from herself and from the world in 
agony, at the perpetration of the deed by which she 
is ruined and her fame blasted for ever, is — your 
daughter !” 

“ My daughter !” 

“ Yes, Lord Arlington, your daughter. Oh, that 
I had the voice of heaven to thunder it in your ear ! 
Your daughter, the child of that Agnes whom you 
betrayed under the title of wife, when you had no 
longer that title to bestow ; tije child of the only 
woman whom your vacillating nature ever permit- 
ted you to love truly ; the child of that woman for 
whom I, with a hundred others, was deserted. And 
where is she now] — this child of guilt — weeping 
for the infamy into which she has been plunged by 
the act of her own father.” 

“ Woman, it is false ! It must be false ! That 
child is dead.” 

“ She is living, and will live to curse you. Think 
not to shield your heart from its agony by the idea 
of the falsehood of my assertions. I have proof 
upon proof. I have known it for months, and I 
have urged on your actions that I might enjoy the 
moment of my vengeance.” 

“Devil! demon!” exclaimed Lord Arlington. 
“ But it cannot be. ’Tis all a lie; a black inven- 
tion of a blacker mind. La Tour, La Tour, my 
carriage immediately !” and he broke the bell-rope 
in his agitation and haste to procure his carriage; 
and he again repeated, “ I’ll not believe it.” 

At this moment a carriage was heard to drive 
furiously up to the door; and in another instant La 
Tour burst into the library, followed by Atkins the 


110 


THE OXONIANS. 


confidential servant of Lord Arlington’s friend Vil" 
lars. 

Arlington started, and turned paler than before 
at the appearance of this man ; who, breathless with 
his haste, and forgetting all ceremony in the impor- 
tance of his mission, rushed to Lord Arlington, 
and, giving him a letter, said “ Read, my Lord, 
read !” 

Arlington dashed open the letter, and to his hor- 
ror, read these words : — 

“Arlington, I have discovered all; Agnese is 
your daughter; I have the fullest proof of the fact : 
and without daring to wait to tell you more, lest 
the intelligence should be too late, I have ordered 
Atkins to travel night and day till he arrives in 
Audley Square. God grant he may reach you in 
time, and save you from the completion of a crime, 
blacker than all that has gone before. 

“ F. ViLLARS.” 

By this time La Tour had hurried Atkins out of 
the room, unwilling to expose to him the scene 
w hich he knew too well was passing between Lady 
Orville and his master. 

Lord Arlington was at first stupefied by this con- 
firmation of the Countess’s intelligence. He re- 
peated, almost in a state of insensibility, “ Why, 
the woman speaks truth — this confirms it ! Then 
rising from his unnatural -calmness into the excess 
of agitation and passion, he exclaimed, “ I may yet 
be in time ! Orville cannot yet have accomplished 
his purpose !” and dashing the Countess aside, 
(who at the name of Orville had approached him,) 
with a violence that threw her on the sofa, he 
rushed from the library through the ante-room and 
hall and leaping into the chaise which had brought 
Yillar’s servant express, he ordered the post-boys 
to last their jaded steeds in the direction of the 
cottage, and promised them immense rewards, if 
they would but arrive in time. 

Lady Orville, to whom this was the first intima- 
tion that her son was the friend for whom Lord 
Orville had acted the part of Pandar, in an instant 
saw how much more of crime and guilt hung upon 
the circumstances than she at first had apprehended. 
Horror and remorse seemed suddenly to have taken 
possession of her mind ; and clasping her hands in 
agony, and exclaiming, “ Orville — did he say Or- 
ville ]” she sprung into her carriage, and being well 
acquainted with the place in which the crime was 
intended to be consummated, she directed her 
coachman to follow the chaise with the utmost 
frpeed of horses. 



CHAPTER XL. 

RETRIBUTION. 

It may be the fashion, and it may be the philoso- 
phy, to laugh at and ridicule the idea of presenti- 
ment ; yet who is there that has not, in the course 
of his life, felt that sinking of the spirit, that indefi- 
nite apprehension of something that is going to 


happen, which almost arrives as a prescience of evil 
and seems to warn us of its approach. 

It was with a feeling something akin to this, that 
Agnese parted from Mrs. Wheeler for the night, 
and retired to the apartment prepared for her. The 
commencement of the day had been passed by her 
in the full enjoyment of the quiet and retirement 
which her late anxious and public life had rendered 
doubly pleasing to her; but even during the morn- 
ing, she had been half alarmed as well as surprised, 
at the freedom of Mrs. Wheeler’s conversation. 
They were joined at an early dinner by Lord Or- 
ville and two or three more guests, both male and 
female, whose manners were any thing but pleasing 
to or consonant with Agnese’* ideas of propriety, 
^he could not but observe, toi , that every oppor- 
tunity was sought to leave her alone with Lord 
Orville, who, contrary to all his former practice, 
almost persecuted her with his attentions, and fin- 
ished by an open declaration of his passion, couched 
in terms that were calculated to offend wmmen of 
a much less sense of delicacy and female decorum 
than Agnese possessed. ISurpiised and oflended, 
she succeeded in checking his presumption, and 
could attribute his conduct to nothing but the influ- 
ence of wine. From this moment, she kept con- 
stantly close to Mrs. Wheeler; but it soon became 
evident that Lord Orville was encouraged by her 
in his pursuit, and that she attributed Agnese’s 
conduct to ridiculous and unnecessary fastidious- 
ness, if not to affectation. 

Fatigued and disgusted, nay, almost alarmed at 
conduct in every respect so new, both on the part 
of Lord Orville and her hostess, Agnese rejoiced 
when the party broke up, and half displeased, she 
soon retired to her own apartment, determined to 
return home as early in the morning as she possi- 
bly could. 

Mrs. Wheeler conducted her to the apartment^ 
prepared for her, and ridiculing the anger she ex- 
pressed at the freedoms of Lord Orville, bade her 
good night, leaving Agnese far from being pleased 
at her conduct, and oppressed by a lowness of 
spirits for which she could not account. A presen- 
timent of evil lingered in her mind, and prevented 
her from immediately seeking her bed ; she dreaded 
she knew not what, and almost smiled at her own 
fears when she found herself unconsciously exam- 
ining the fastenings of the door and windows of 
her apartment. These she secured, but still felt 
restless and uneasy ; and two or three times, as she 
sat down to undress, did she fancy she heard 
noises near her. Sometimes her ears seemed to 
catch the sound of suppressed breathing; at others, 
the creaking of the wainscot alarmed her, till, al- 
though ashamed of her own fears, and convinced 
that they were chimerical, she could not help wish- 
ing most ardently for the morning, and was two 
or three times on the point of ringing the bell, to 
request that one of the female servants might be 
allowed to remain with her for the night. It w’as 
in vain that she tried to argue herself out of these 
fears ; they increased upon her in spile of her rea- 
son, until she was in a state of serious agitation, at 
which she was both alarmed and ashamed. The 
quietness of the night was now also broken in upon 
by the rising wind and the rain, which began to 
patter violently against the window, while one or 
two distant peals of thunder gave indication of a 


THE OXONIANS. 


Ill 


coming storm. Oppressed and uneasy, A gnese at 
length became too much alarmed to think of going 
to bed; and stirring the fire in her dressing-room, 
she determined to sit by it till daylight. She had 
scarcely taken her seat with this determination, 
when she was again alarmed by the sound of hard 
breathing — she was now no longer deceived ; the 
sound grew louder and more distinct, and was im- 
mediately succeeded by a rustling noise that pro- 
ceeded from an inner door of her apartment, which 
she had examined and found fastened on the other 
side. At this monient the key turned in this door; 
Agnese started up, and waiting the event with 
breathless and anxious suspense, almost screamed 
with terror when she saw the door slowly open, 
and Lord Orville enter. His step was unsteady, 
and his countenance flushed ; for Lord Orville, 
villain as he was, had been obliged to have recourse 
to stimulus to inspire him wdth sufficient courage 
for the infamous deed he had determined upon. 
His eye, to Agnese’s apprehension, glared with an 
unnatural brightness, and his whole frame and ap- 
pearance betrayed the influence of uncontrolable 
passion. As he approached, she rushed to the side 
of the fireplace to seize the bell, and again screamed 
with agony when she discovered that it had been 
rolled up and placed out of her reach. Lord Or- 
ville laughed at her impotent attempt, and seizing 
her hands as she would have retreated to the far- 
ther extremity of her apartment, poured into her 
ears the declaration of his passion ; told the length 
of time he had smothered it in his breast ; detailed 
all the pains he had taken to get her into his 
power ; and entreated her to return his love with 
some appearance of kindness. 

Sickening with disgust at language to which she 
was unaccustomed, and almost fainting from appre- 
hension, Agnese felt the necessity tor her presence 
of mind, and tried to argue and entreat him into 
calmness, while she receded, with her hands still 
in his, toward the entrance to the room; when 
suddenly releasing herself from his grasp, she 
seized hold of the lock, and by a sudden effort 
attempted to open it — but shrunk back with agony 
on finding that it was fastened on the other side. 
It now scarcely needed the subsequent boast of 
Lord Orville to convince her that Mrs. Wheeler 
was in the plot against her, and that she was com- 
pletely in the power of an unprincipled villain, who 
expressed both by his w'ords and actions, his deter- 
mination to make the best use of it, and that she 
should not escape him. The violence of his pas- 
sions, acted upon by the wine he had drunk, 
indeed, left him no longer master of his own 
actions, and he seemed inclined to proceed to 
immediate extremities. It was in vain that she 
implored him as a man of honor, as he valued the 
honor of those dear to him, to desist ; she spoke to 
a heart of stone ; her appeal was made to one who 
had no feeling but for himself, no sense but that of 
his own gratification. The storm without which 
now seemed to rage with increased violence, scarcely 
exceeded the tumult of those passions by which 
Lord Orville was agitated ; his vehement entreaties 
were becoming threats; his oaths were those of 
impatience as well as love ; he was one moment 
on his knees in passionate entreaty, and in the 
next had seized her in his arms, threatening the 
extiemity of violence — when one of those gusts of 


passion was interrupted by a sudden and violent 
ringing of bells. This was immediately succeeded 
by the opening and shutting of doors, and by 
a bustle which was heard even above the storm. 
Lord Orville, however, well convinced that none 
of Mrs. Wheeler^s household would venture near 
the apartment of Agnese, again seized her in his 
arms, when the door of the dressing-room was 
suddenly burst open, and Lord Arlington rushed 
into the apartment, breathless with anxiety and 
horror. 

With a momentary renewal of his former strength 
he dashed Orville aside, as he exclaimed, “ Orville, 
villain, desist!” He could articulate no more. 
Orville, surprised at the sudden and unexpected 
appearance of Arlington, had almost relinquished 
his hold of Agnese ; but roused by the blow, and 
stung to madness at the idea of losing the fruits of 
his villany, he by one effort again released Agnese 
from the convulsive grasp of Arlington, to whom 
she clung for protection, and would most likely 
have felled her deliverer to the ground, had he not 
been prevented by the sudden discharge of one of 
the pistols with which Lord Arlington had armed 
himself, and the contents of which lodged in his 
breast. Orville’s hand relaxed its hold ; his eyes 
swam in dizziness; he reeled backwards, and ex- 
claiming, “ Arlington, madman, you have mur- 
dered me !” sunk on a seat that was near him. 

Agnese, unconscious of every thing but her 
escape, still clung to Arlington ; all her former 
dislike of him subsiding in comparison of the terror 
she had felt at the attack of Lord^ Orville, and at 
the joy she experienced at her unexpected deli- 
very. At this moment Lady Orville entered, foI» 
lowed by Mrs. Wheeler; she had heard the report 
of the pistol as she entered the house, and seeing 
the state of Lord Orville, who appeared to be 
d3ing, and the weapon lying upon the floor, she 
rushed to his assistance. Lord Orville looked on 
her for a moment, and fainted from loss of blood ; 
Mrs. Wheeler despatched servants for medical aid, 
and immediately applied herself to staunch the 
blood, while Lady Orville exclaimed, 

“Ob, Orville ! my son, my son ! look up! — it is 
your mother calls.” Then suddenly addressing 
Arlington, and in her agony losing all sense of 
shame, all recollections of prudence, she said, 
“ Look here ! behold another victim of your licen- 
tious passions! Arlington, you are the murderer 
of your own son !” 

Arlington looked bewildered. “ Yes, Arlington, 
it is true ; there,” pointing to Agnese, “ is the off- 
spring of the innocent Agnese, your murdered 
wife; here lies the offspring of our mutual guilt, 
weltering in his blood, the victim of a father’s 
crimes !” 

Arlington’s accusing conscience told him that 
this might be too true, and shuddering at the pre- 
cipice of crime on which his own villany had placed 
his children, as well as shrinking from the spirit he 
had roused in the countess, he took advantage t)f 
her attention to Orville, who began to give some 
signs of life, to bear Agnese from the scene of 
horror, and placing her in the carriage, immediately 
ordered it to Lady Emily Hartley’s to whose care 
he determined to confide his child. Quite uncon- 
scious, in his agitation, of the impropriety of rais- 
ing the Hartley family at such an hour, he drove 


112 


THE 0 X 0 N I A ^ S. 


(directly to the door, feeling that his streneth was | 
becoming so much exhausted, that if the remainder i 
of his task were not performed immediately it 
might not be performed at all; for he was sensible j 
that his late agitation had been too great for his | 
enfeebled frame, and he had the greatest difficulty i 
to continue the exertion and energy of his mind ; 
long enough to reach Hartley-house. j 

Raising the servants, he entreated an interview ! 
with Lady Emily. It was granted as fast as she ; 
could make herself ready to receive him in her 
dressing-room, and he had scarcely confided to her i 
the discovery he had so lately and so providentially , 
made, and seen his cliild clasped in the maternal j 
embrace of her mother’s earliest friend, before, 
overcome by the exertion he had undergone, the , 
blood rushed to his head, and Arlington fell in a , 
lit upon the floor. j 

Medical assistance was of course instantly pro- j 
cured ; but though immediate death was prevented, i 
Lord Arlington only recovered the few days that ; 
remained to him of life, to be the victim of mental 
alienation. Scenes of horror seemed perpetually 
present to his imagination ; he groaned with inter- : 
nal agony, or started with apprehension at some 
terrific vision. In the language he uttered that j 
could be understood, prayers were mingled with ; 
curses, plasphemy with his calls for mercy. He | 
cried perpetually for water — ice — ice — cold water, ■ 
to quench the fire in his heart and brain ; and no ^ 
one approached him whom he did not accuse of j 
heaping burning coals upon his head. When ex- i 
haustion prevented his crying aloud, the internal 1 
workings of his agony could be discovered by the | 
restless eye, or the fixed look of horror w'ith wffiich ; 
he appeared to gaze upon some dreaded object ; and 
during the remaining period of existence his eyes j 
never closed till they were closed for ever, on the ' 
tliird day after the attack, when he yielded to the * 
power of death amid apalling shrieks of agony, in 1 
which he cried “ Save me, save me — he comes — | 
Death — hell — I will not die ! I will not die !” i 
and he expired with these words upon his lips. * ’ 


CHAPTER LX I. 


A SUMMARY. 


As the summing up of the evidence by the 
judge is generally the moFit tedious part of the 
trial, since there are no new facts to be elicited, and 
the auditors have no novelty to interest them, so is 
the last chapter of a novel generally the most 
uninteresting, since the reader has already antici- 
pated its contents. 

The story of Lord Arlington and Lady Orville, 
together with the scene at Mrs. Wheeler’s, were 
obliged to be made public by the legal inquiries 
which were the necessary result of Lord Orville’s 
death; and the countess w’as, of course, shut out 
for ever from society, and visited by the contempt 
and scorn of that world for whose good opinion 
she had sacrificed so much. In her retirement 
she had not one pleasant reccliection to look back 


upon; and deserted by her daughter, who could 
not of course sulfer the contaminating intercourse 
of such a mother, she lingered out the remainder 
of her days in bitterness with her divorcee friend 
on the continent. 

For Langley, of whom we have lost sight since 
he has been buried in the voluminous proceedings 
of his suit in Chancery, fortune had yet some 
good in store, which came just in time to prevent 
the total ruin of his ho[)es. An old legal friend 
of the Admiral arrived from India, having an 
executed copy of a will made in favor of his sister 
and her child, Langley’s wife, which, being his last 
will, of course put an end to the Chancery pro- 
ceedings, and Langley in possession of his wife’s 
fortune, and, to use a vulgar proverb, as “ it never 
rains but it pours,” just at this time he received a 
characteristic epistle from Harr}’ Vaux, informing 
him, that in searching through the books of his 
parish for some legal purpose, he had discovered 
the register of a marriage between Charles Lang- 
ley and Susannah Maybloom in the year 18 — ; 
and upon inquiry found one of the witnesses living 
in the person of an old nurse, who, though long 
bed-ridden, had not yet lost the use of her facul- 
ties, and from whose evidence the Rev. Mr. Vaux 
had no doubt but that the register alluded to Lang- 
ley’s father and mother, and was doubtless the 
record of that secret marriage of which Langley 
had heard, but which he could never prove. 

A very little inquiry set this matter beyond a 
doubt, and being now the acknowledged heir-at-law 
to his late father, the usurer was applied to, to dis- 
gorge his ill-gotten wealth in favor of the rightful 
jKJSsessor; old Langley, hugging himself in the 
power of possession, set the applicants at defiance, 
and entrenched himself behind all the quibbles of 
the law. A really respectable solicitor, how’ever, 
can always annihilate the projects of those petti- 
foggers who live merely by the quibbles of their 
profession ; and the old gentleman was soon glad 
to capitulate on condition of retaining some portion 
of the money he had amassed. In the investiga- 
tion of the papers connected with his transactions, 
enough w’as discovered to set aside at least one-half 
of the annuities, and to release a great portion of 
the securities which had been granted him by the 
imprudence and folly of Lascelles; wffio by these 
means recovered such a portion of his fortune as 
to retire to one of his family seats, w ith the pros- 
pect of becoming a more respectable, though not so 
rich a man as formerly. 

The result of the discovery of the birth of Agnese 
may be easily imagined by those who have a just 
conception of the character of Lady Emily and 
her husband, now become Lord and Lady Arling- 
ton. Could Lady Emily have bad her choice of a 
wife for her son, it would have been the child of 
the beloved friend of her youth, whose fate she had 
so long regretted. That Agnese was the daughter 
of this friend, wms fully proved by the evidence 
sent over by Villars, and by that likeness which 
Lady Emily could trace in every feature to those 
of her mother ; and had fortune been wanted to 
render such a marriatje more desirable, the sameevi- 
I deuce that proved her birth, also proved her title to 
[ considerable wealth, under the will of the person 
to whom Agnese had been confided by her mother; 
I a will that had hitherto been concealed by the cu- 


THE OXONIANS. 


113 


pidity of a confidential servant, who was with this 
gentleman when he expired; and who, tempted by 
the value of his personal effects, and the property 
of which his master was possessed on the Conti- 
nent, had placed Agnese with the Bononis, instead 
of bringing her to England, according to the dying 
commands of his master. For twenty years this 
man had enjoyed his ill-gotten wealth, together 
with such portions of the property from England 
as could be obtained by means of orders forged in 
his master’s name, till overtaken by a severe ill- 
ness in some Italian village, and finding himself 
dying, he confided the story of his villany to an 
Englishman who w'as staying at the same alberga. 
This Englishman was Villars, who. w'e have seen, 
lost no time in communicating the intelligence to 
his friend. 

Hartley and Agnese were now, therefore, left to 
the full indulgence of their mutual affection, and 
found a double pleasure in its gratification, from 
the recollection of their conduct when they deemed 
their passion to be hopeless, and from the approba- 
tion that this conduct had elicited from Hartley’s 
parents, and the esteem which it had won from 
them for Agnese, before they knew to how much of 
their love she was entitled by her birth. 

It was, therefore, determined that, as soon as a 
sufficient time should have elapsed after the death 
of Lord Arlington, the same day should secure the 
happiness of Hartley and Agnese, and of Forrester 
and Emily. 

Whether that time was impatiently waited for 
bv the lovers, or whether the pleasures of anticipa- 
tion lengthened or shortened this period to their 
imaginations, we leave the reader to determine. 
The period at length arrived, and Agnese received 
the vows of Hartley at the altar, his father acting 
as hers in the marriage ceremony. Forrester, on 
the same day received the hand of Emily Hartley; 
and blest with the full consent of her parents, we 
leave them to the only true enjoyment of love — 
that which is derived from wedded happiness. 



CONCLUSION. 

Our Oxonian was at length happy; blest in a 
union with a woman he loved — and that union ful- 
ly approved by his parents — life once more appear- 
ed to his anticipations as it had done at his entrance 
into life. Every thing with regard to the future was 
unclouded; and our hero, as he pressed his wife to 
his bosom, and acknowledged her goodness, again 
wrote to his friend Strictland that the world was 
a beautiful w’orld.” Their honey-moon which was 
passed in the retiremetit of one of the Arlington es- 
tates, where Agnese made herself acquainted with 
her new tenants, and learned from her husband how 
to make herself beloved by them, was succeeded by 
a tour in which it was intended to visit all the dif- 
ferent estates of which Hartley would now, one 
day or other, become the master. It W'as in the 
prosecution of this tour that the new married cou- 
ple arrived at a small inn in the village of in 

Dorsetshire. The beauty of the place induced the j 


determination to dine anJ to pass the night there. 
After dinner, Agnese had retired to prepare for an 
evening walk, and Hartley was sitting in the full 
enjoyment of his happiness, gazing on the lovely 
and quiet scene that lay spread in all its landscape 
beauties before the window of his apartment, w’hen 
he was surprised by the appearance of a lovely 
child, who passed the window with his little frock 
loaded with flowers. The child’s dress was black 
and this .sombre apparel formed such a contrast to 
the rosy cheeks of the child, and the gayety of the 
flowers which it was carrying, that Hartley’s curi- 
osity W'as excited, and going to the window which 
opened to the ground, he called the child to him. 
As it approached, he was struck by the appearance 
of melancholy, of which there were evident traces 
in its infant countenance. 

“ What are you going to do with your flowers, 
my pretty fellow]” asked Hartley. 

To carry them to mamma,” lisped the child. 
“ Mamma loves flowers, and little Frank loves 
mamma ]” 

“ And where is your mamma ]” again asked 
Hartley. 

“ There,” said the infant, pointing to the burial 
place of the village church, which raised its 
humble spire at a little distance from the inn; 
“ in the churchyard — there — they have hid mam- 
ma !” and a flood of tears poured down the child’s 
cheeks. 

Unaccountably interested in grief which seemed 
beyond the years of the infant by whom it was 
exhibited. Hartley asked if the child would show 
his “ mamma’s grave.” Delighted at the interest 
taken in its feelings, the child replied, Oh, yes!” 
and led the way through the garden of the inn, 
from which a wicket led at once into the church- 
yard. 

It was an edifice of gray stone, with a square 
end, dignified with the name of tower, in which w'as 
hung the only bell that proclaimed all the simple 
annals of the place, by sounding for christenings, 
marriages and funerals — that called the lonely in- 
habitants of the village to their devotions, and 
tolled over their remains as they w'ere borne to theii 
long and last home. The walls of the church 
were spread over with ivy — yet there was a cheer 
ful quiet look about the place that gave it the ap- 
pearance of a resting-place rather than a charnel- 
house ; and at this instant the glaring beams of the 
setting sun shone brightly on the window's, and 
threw a crimson tint even upon the cold gray stone 
and green ivy of the church. One spot alone was 
in deep shadow-, and this was a nook formed by one 
of the angle.s of the church, in which rose a yew 
tree, whose foliage w'as almost black, in comparison 
w'ith the neighboring ivy which rose around it, and 
the turf which spreads its green carpet beneath it. 

To this dark spot the child directed his footsteps, 
and stopping under the yew tree, pointed to the 
only white stone which rose in the precincts of its 
shade. It was but a rude attempt to perpetuate 
the memory of the dead. Hartley cast his eyes 
upon the humble monument, and started as he read 
the words — “Caroline Dormer.” 

He gazed for a few moments on the inscription ; a 
cloud of mingled sensations and recollections of 
shame and repentance came over his mind — eh 
1 burst into tears, and clasping the child to his 


/ 


114 THE OXONIANS. 


bosom, gave ivay to the bitterness of his feelings, 
rendered more intense by the contrast of his pre- 
sent situation with the premature fate of Caroline. 

By a little inquiry, Hartley discovered that an 
aged aunt of Caroline’s had resided in the village, 
and had some few years since received a widowed 
niece into her protection, who became beloved and 
respected by everybody for her exemplary conduct, 
and pitied for the grief with which she mourned 


her husband, and to which she at length fell an 
early victim. 

In the full possession of his riches, and in the 
full enjoyment of happiness, the fate of Caroline 
dashed Hartley's cup of joy with bitterness; and 
many were the pangs which his repentance for his 
early error inflicted during his future life, in which, 
however, he attempted to atone in kindness to the 
child for the wrongs done the mother 


> 


A 


NOVEL. 


i 


/ ■ 

BY SIB E, L. BULWER. 

- ij ■ 

AUTHOR OF « LUCRETIA «THE ROUE,’^ « THE OXONIANS,” “ZANONI/ 
"NIGHT AND MORNING,” " LAST OF THE BARONS,” "ALICE,” 
"ERNEST MALTRAVERS,” "EUGENE ARAM,” "DEVEREUX,” 
"LAST DAYS OF POMPEII,” "RIENZI,” "PAUL CLIF- 
FORD,” " PELHAM,” " HAROLD,” ETC., ETC 

/ 


ONLY CHEAP EDITION EVEIl PRINTED. 


I 


JO 1) 1 1 a b e I p b i ‘ 

T. B. PETERSON, No. 98 CHESNUT STREET. 


PREFACE. 


i 

I TRUST that I shall not be considered to despise, when I 
disclaim for this publication, the title of a Novel. I feel, 
on the contrary, that to most readers it will be less, and 
can scarcely flatter myself that to a few it will be more. 
For one class, my work will be too frivolous ; for another 
too dull. The cold will be displeased, and the sanguine 
disappointed ; the former with descriptions of feelings they 
cannot recognise as true ; the latter with reflections upon 
life inimical to the philosophy they adopt. Whatever has 
been my motive for publishing, it was not the anticipation 
of success ; and probably no one, in making a similar expe- 
riment, has ever claimed more sincerely the merit of diffi- 
dence as to the result. 

Perhaps, however altered for publication, the first idea 
of this history had its foundation in fact ; perhaps, among 

( 7 ) 


8 


PREFACE, 


the letters now given to the world in the hope that they 
may “ point a moral,” there are some not originally written 
to “adorn a tale;” but this would be matter of idle affirma- 
tion in me, and unavailing inquiry in others. Nor would 
it be any answer to those who may find the characters un- 
natural, and the sentiments exaggerated, could I assert that 
the characters had existed, and the sentiments had been 
felt : in a state of society, where all things are artificial, 
nothing seems so false as that which is really true. 

I have some apprehensions lest by those readers, w’ho 
judge of the wffiole only by a part, the end of this work 
should be censured because misunderstood. I have some 
apprehensions lest occasional descriptions be considered too 
vividly coloured, or sketches of feeling too faithfully por- 
trayed ; but let it be remembered, before I am condemned, 
that no mistake has been so great (though so common) in 
morals, as to lay down a penalty without particularising 
the offence; and, if I have copied truth in showing the 
punishment, it was necessary also to study the same model 
in recording the annals of the passions. But, though I 
confess I have aimed at a resemblance, I have carefully 
avoided an embellishment ; never once in the picture of guilt 
have I attempted to varnish its misery, or to gloss over its 
shame. If my story has been founded on the errors of the 
heart, it is because the most useful of morals may be gath- 
ered from the consequences they bring. 


PREFACE. 


9 


In the character of Falkland I have wished to show that 
all virtue is weak, and that all wisdom is unavailing, where 
there is no pervading and fixed principle to become at once 
our criterion for every new variation of conduct, and our 
pledge for pursuing, if we have once resolved to adopt it. 
Nor is it only in the general plot, but in the scattered re- 
flections it embraces, that I have attempted to realise what 
ought to be the great object of all human compositions. 

If it be the good fortune of this volume to meet with 
some to whom the passions have been the tutors of reflec- 
tion, who deem that observations on our nature, even if 
erroneous in themselves, are always beneficial to truth, and 
who think that more knowledge of the secret heart may 
often be condensed into a single thought than scattered over 
a thousand events ; if it be the good fortune of this volume 
to meet with such, it is to them that I fearlessly entrust it 
— not, indeed, to be approved in its execution, but at least 
to be acquitted in its design. 

It now only remains to be added, that in entering a career 
with no motive and ambition in common with those of his 
competitors, the Author earnestly trusts that he shall be 
exonerated from the charge of presumption, if he cannot 
adopt the language of hope or apprehension which is cus- 
tomary with others : men who pretend to experience, not 
to genius, are less likely to miscalculate the bounds of their 
merits, or be susceptible to general opinion as to their ex- 


10 


PREFACE. 


tent. If the author has reflected erroneously, it is because 
events have led him rather to embody his own than to bor- 
row the conclusions of another : if he has offended in his 
delineation of the feelings, it is because he has wrought 
from no model but remembrance ; and if he cannot now 
feel much eagerness of interest in the success of his at- 
tempt, it is because, from his acquaintance with mankind, 
, he has shaped out an empire for himself which their praise 
cannot widen, and which their censure is unable to destroy, 
London, March 1th, 1827. 


FALKLAND. 

A NOVEL 

BY SIR E. L BULWER. 


BOOK I. 


From Erasmus Falkland, 
Esq., to the Hon. Frederick 
Monkton. 

L , May 1822. 

You are mistaken, my 
dear Monkton! Your de- 
scription of the gaiety of 
“the season” gives me no 
emotion. You speak of 
pleasure ; I remember no 
labour so wearisome : you 
enlarge upon its changes; 
no sameness appears to 
me so monotonous. Keep, 
then, your pity for those 
who require it. From the 
height of my philosophy I 
compassionate you. No one 
is so vain as a recluse; 
and your jests at my her- 
mitship and hermitage can- 
not penetrate the folds of 
a self-conceit, which does 
not envy you in your 
suppers at D ^House, nor 


even in your waltzes with 
Eleanor . 

It is a ruin rather than a 
house which I inhabit. I 

have not been at L 

since my return from 
abroad, and during those 
years the place has gone 
rapidly to decay; perhaps, 
for that reason, it suits me 
better, tel maitre telle 
maison. 

Of all my possessions 
this is the least valuable 
in itself, and derives the 
least interest from the asso- 
ciations of childhood, for 

it was not at L that 

any part of that period 
was spent. I have, how- 
ever, chosen it for my 
present retreat, because here 
only I am personally un- 
known, and therefore little 
likely to be disturbed. I do 
1 not, indeed, wish for the 


12 


FALKLAND. 


interruptions designed as 
civilities ; I rather gather 
around myself, link after 
link, the chains that con- 
nected me with the world; 
I find among my own 
thoughts that variety and 
occupation which you only 
experience in your inter- 
course with others ; and 
I make, like the Chinese, 
my map of the universe 
consist of a circle in a 
square — the circle is my 
own empire of thought and 
self; and it is to the scanty 
corners which it leaves 
without, that I banish what- 
ever belongs to the re- 
mainder of mankind. 

About a mile from L 

is Mr. Mandeville’s beauti- 
ful villa of E , in the 

midst of grounds which 
form a delightful contrast 
to the savage and wild 
scenery by which they are 
surrounded. As the house 
is at present quite deserted, 
I have obtained, through 
the gardener, a free ad- 
mittance into his domains, 
and I pass there whole 
hours, indulging, like the 
hero of the Lutrin, “une 
sainte oisivete,” listening to 
a little noisy brook, and let- 
ting my thoughts be almost 
as vague and idle as the 
birds which wander among 
the trees that surround me. 
I could wish, indeed, that 
this simile were in all things 
correct — that those thoughts 


if as free, were also as 
happy as the objects of 
my comparison ; and could, 
like them, after the rovings 
of the day, turn at evening 
to a resting-place, and be 
still. We are the dupes 
and the victims of our 
senses ; while we use them 
to gather from external 
things the hoards that we 
store within, w^e cannot fore- 
see the punishments we pre- 
pare for ourselves. The re- 
membrance which stings, 
and the hope which de- 
ceives, the passions which 
promise us rapture, which 
reward us with despair, and 
the thoughts which, if they 
constitute the healthful 
action, make also the fever- 
ish excitement of our minds. 
What sick man has not 
dreamt in his delirium 
every thing that our philo- 
sophers have said ?* But I 
am growing into my old 
habit of gloomy reflection, 
and it is time that I should 
conclude. I meant to have 
written you a letter as 
light as your own; if I 
have failed it is no won- 
der. — “Notre coeur est un 
instrument incomplet — une 
lyre ou il manque des 
cordes, et ou nous sommes 
forces de rendre les accens 
de la joie, sur le ton con- 
sacre aux soupirs.” 

* Quid 86grotus unquam somniavit 
quod philosophorum aliquis non dix- 
erit ? — Lactantius. 


FALKLAND. 


13 


From the same to the same. 

You ask me to give you 
some sketch of my life, and 
of that bel mondo •which 
wearied me so soon. Men 
seldom reject an opportunity 
to talk of themselves ; and I 
am not unwilling to re-exa- 
mine the past, to reconnect 
it with the present, and to 
gather from a consideration 
of each what hopes and 
expectations are still left to 
me for the future. 

But my detail must be 
rather of thought than of 
action : most of those whose 
fate has been connected with 
mine are now living, and I 
would not, even to you, 
break that tacit confidence 
which much of my history 
would require. After all, 
you will have no loss. The 
actions of another may inter- 
est — ^but, for the most part, it 
is only his reflections which 
come home to us; for few 
have acted, nearly all of 
us have thought. 

My own vanity would be 
unwilling to enter upon in- 
cidents which had their ori- 
gin either in folly or in er- 
ror. It is true that those 
follies and errors have ceas- 
ed, but their effects remain. 
With years our faults dimi- 
nish, but our vices increase. 

You know that my mo- 
ther was Spanish, and that 
my father was one of that 
old race of which so few 


scions remain, who, living 
in a distant country, have 
been little influenced by the 
changes of fashion, and prid- 
ing themselves on the an- 
tiquity of their names, have 
looked with contempt up- 
on the modern distinctions 
and the mushroom noblesse 
which have sprung up to 
discountenance and eclipse 
the plainness of more vene- 
rable and solid respectabi- 
lity. In his youth my fa- 
ther had served in the army. 
He had known much of men 
and more of books ; but his 
knowledge, instead of root- 
ing out, had rather been en- 
grafted on his prejudices. 
He was one of that class 
(and I say it with a private 
reverence, though a public 
regret,) who, with the best 
intentions, have made the 
worst citizens, and who 
think it a duty to perpetu- 
ate whatever is pernicious 
by having learnt to consider 
it as sacred. He was a great 
country gentleman, a great 
sportsman, and a great To- 
ry ; perhaps the three worst 
enemies which a country 
can have. Though benefi- 
cent to the poor, he gave 
but a cold reception to the 
rich ; for he was too refined 
to associate with his inferi- 
ors, and too proud to like the 
competition of his equals. 
One ball and two dinners 
a-year constituted all the 
aristocratic portion of our 
hospitality, and at the age 


14 


FALKLAND. 


of twelve, the noblest and 
youngest companions that 
I possessed, were a large Da- 
nish dog and a wdld moun- 
tain pony, as unbroken and 
as lawless as myself. It is 
only in later years that we 
can perceive the immeasu- 
rable importance of the ear- 
ly scenes and circumstances 
which surround us. It was 
in the loneliness of my un- 
checked wanderings that my 
early affection for my own 
thoughts was conceived. In 
the seclusion of Nature — 
in whatever court she pre- 
sided — the education of my 
mind was begun ; and, even 
at that early age, I rejoiced 
(like the wild hart the Gre- 
cian poet* has described) in 
the stillness of the great 
woods, and the solitudes un- 
broken by human footsteps. 

The first change in my 
life was under melancholy 
auspices : my father fell sud- 
denly ill, and died ; and my 
mother, whose very exist- 
ence seemed only held in 
his presence, followed him 
in three months. I remem- 
ber that, a few hours before 
her death, she called me to 
her ; she reminded me that, 
through her, I was of Spa- 
nish extraction ; that in her 
country I received my birth, 
and that, not the less for its 
degradation and distress, I 
might hereafter find in the 
relations which I held to it 


* Eurip. Bacchse, 1. 874. 


a remembrance to value, or 
even a duty to fulfil. On 
her tenderness to me at that 
hour, on the impression it 
made upon my mind, and 
on the keen and enduring 
sorrow w'hich I felt for 
months after her death, it 
would be useless to dwell. 

My uncle became my 
guardian. He is, you know, 
a member of parliament of 
some reputation ; very sen- 
sible and very dull ; very 
much respected by men, 
very much disliked by wo- 
men; and inspiring all chil- 
dren, of either sex, with the 
same unmitigated aversion 
which he feels for them him- 
self. 

I did not remain long un- 
der his immediate care. I 
was soon sent to school 
— that preparatory world, 
w^here the great primal prin- 
ciples of human nature, in 
the aggression of the strong 
and the meanness of the 
weak, constitute the earliest 
lesson of importance that 
we are taught ; and where 
the forced pi'imiticB of that 
less universal knowledge 
which is useless to the ma- 
ny, who, in after life, ne- 
glect, and bitter to the few 
who improve it, are the first 
motives for which our minds 
are to be broken to terror, 
and our hearts initiated into 
tears. 

Bold and resolute by tem- 
per, I soon carved myself a 
sort of career among my as- 


FALKLAND. 


15 


sociates. A hatred to all op- 
pression, and a haughty and 
unyielding character, made 
me at once the fear and aver- 
sion of the greater powers 
and principalities of the 
school ; while my agility at 
all boyish games, and my 
ready assistance or protec- 
tion to every one who re- 
quired it, made me propor- 
tionally popular with, and 
courted by, the humbler 
multitude of the subordi- 
nate classes. I was constant- 
ly surrounded by the most 
lawless and mischievous fol- 
lowers whom the school could 
afford ; all eager for my com- 
. mands, and all pledged to 
their execution. 

In good truth, I was a 
worthy Roland of such a 
gang : though I excelled in, 
I cared little for, the ordi- 
nary amusements of the 
school : I was fonder of en- 
gaging in marauding expe- 
ditions contrary to our legis- 
lative restrictions, and I va- 
lued myself equall_y upon 
my boldness in planning our 
exploits, and my dexterity 
in eluding their discovery. 
But exactly in proportion 
as our school-terms connect- 
ed me with those of ,my owm 
years, did our vacations un- 
fit me for any intimate com- 
panionship but that which 
I already began to discover 
in myself. 

Twice in the year, when 
I went home, it was to that 
wild and romantic part of 


the country where my for- 
mer childhood had been 
spent. There, alone and 
unchecked, I vras thrown 
utterly upon my own re- 
sources. I wandered, by 
day, over the rude scenes 
which surrounded us ; at 
evening I pored, with an 
unwearied delight, over the 
ancient legends which made 
those scenes sacred to my 
imagination. I grew by de- 
grees of a more thoughtful 
and visionary nature. My 
temper imbibed the romance 
of my studies ; and whether, 
in winter, basking by the 
large he’arth of our old hall, 
or stretched, in the indolent 
voluptaousness of summer, 
by ' the rushing streams 
which formed the chief 
characteristic of the county 
around us, my hours were 
equally wasted in those dim 
and luxurious dreams, which 
constituted, perhaps, the 
essence of that poetry I had 
not the genius to embody. 
It was then, by that alter- 
nate restlessness of action 
and idleness of reflection, 
into which my young years 
were divided, that the im- 
press of my character was 
stamped : that fitfulness of 
temper, that affection for ex- 
tremes has accompanied me 
through life. Hence, not 
only all intermediums of 
emotion appear to me as 
tame, but even the most 
overwrought excitation can 
bring neither novelty nor 


16 


FALKLAND. 


zest. I have, as it were, 
feasted upon the passions ; I 
have made that my daily 
food, which, in its strength 
and excess would have been 
poison to others ; I have 
rendered my mind unable to 
enjoy the ordinary aliments 
of nature ; and I have 
wasted, by a premature in- 
dulgence, my resources and 
my powers, till I have left 
my heart, without a remedy 
or a hope, to whatever disor- 
der its own intemperance has 
engendered. 


JVowj the same to the same. 

When I left Dr. ’s 

I was sent to a private tutor 
in D e. Here I continu- 

ed for about two years. It 
was during that time that 
— but what then befel me 
is for no living ear ! The 
characters of that history are 
engraven on my heart in 
letters of fire ; but it is a lan- 
guage that none but myself 
have the authority to read. 
It is enough for the pur- 
pose of my confessions that 
the events of that period 
were connected with the 
first awakening of the most 
powerful of human passions, 
and that, whatever their 
commencement, their end 
was despair! and she — the 
object of that love — the only 


being in the world who ever 
possessed the secret and the 
spell of my nature — her life 
was the bitterness and the 
fever of a troubled heart, — 
her rest is the grave — 

Non la conobbe il mondo mentre T ebbe 

Con ibill ’io, ch ’a pianger qui rimasi. 

That attachment was not so 
much a single event as the 
first link in a long chain 
which was coiled around my 
heart. It were a tedious and 
bitter history, even were it 
permitted, to tell you of all 
the sins and misfortunes to 
which in after-life that pas- 
sion was connected. I will 
only speak of the more hid-* 
den but general effect it had 
upon rny mind; though, in- 
deed, naturally inclined to a 
morbid and melancholy phi- 
losophy, it is more than proba- 
ble, but for that occurrence, 
that it would never have 
found matter for excitement. 
Thrown early among man- 
kind, I should early have 
imbibed their feelings, and 
grown like them by the in- 
fluence of custom. I should 
not have carried W'ithin me 
one unceasing remembrance, 
which was to teach me, like 
Faustus, to find nothing in 
knowledge but its inutility, 
or in hope but its deceit ; 
and to bear like him, 
through the blessings of 
youth and the allurements 
of pleasure, the curse and 
the presence of a fiend. 


FALKLAND. 


17 


From the same to the same. 

It was after the first 
violent grief produced by 
that train of circumstances 
to which I must necessarily 
so darkly allude, that I be- 
gan to apply with earnest- 
ness to books. Night and 
day I devoted myself unceas- 
ingly to study, and from this 
fit I was only recovered by 
the long and dangerous ill- 
ness it produced. Alas ! 
there is no fool like him who 
wishes for knowledge ! It 
is only through woe that we 
are taught to reflect, and we 
gather the honey of worldly 
wisdom, not from flowers, 
but thorns. 

“Une grande passion 
malheureuse est un grand 
moyen de sagesse.” From 
the moment in which the 
buoyancy of my spirit was 
first broken by real anguish, 
the losses of the heart were 
repaired by the experience 
of the mind. I passed at 
once, like Melmoth, from 
youth to age. What were 
any longer to me the ordi- 
nary avocations of my con- 
temporaries? I had ex- 
hausted years in moments — 
I had wasted, like the East- 
ern Queen, my richest jewel 
in a draught. I ceased to 
hope, to feel, to act, to burn : 
such are the impulses of the 
young ! I learned to doubt, 
to reason, to analyse : such 
are the habits of the old ! 


From that time, if I have 
not avoided the pleasures of 
life, I have not enjoyed them. 
Women, wine, the society 
of the gay, the commune of 
the wise, the lonely pursuit 
of knowledge, the daring 
visions of ambition, all have 
occnpied me in turn, and all 
alike have deceived me ; but 
like the Widow in the story 
of Voltaire, I have built at 
last a temple to “ Time, the 
Comforter.” I have growm 
calm and un repining with 
years ; and, if 1 am now 
shrinking from men, I have 
derived at least this advan- 
tage from the loneliness first 
made habitual by regret : — 
that while I feel increased 
benevolence to others, I have 
learned to look for happiness 
only in myself. 

They alone are indepen- 
dent of Fortune who have 
made themselves a separate 
existence from the world. 


From the same to the same. 

I WENT to the Univer- 
sity with a great fund of 
general reading, and habits 
of constant application. My 
uncle, who having no child- 
ren of his own, began to be 
ambitious for me, formed 
great expectations of my 
career at Oxford. I stayed 
there three years, and did 
nothing ! I did not gain a 


18 


FALKLAND. 


single prize, nor did I at-i 
tempt any thing above the 
most ordinary degree. The 
fact is, that nothing seemed 
to me worth the labour of 
success. I conversed with 
those who had obtained the 
highest academical reputa- 
tion, and I smiled with a 
consciousness of superior- 
ity at the boundlessness 
of their vanity, and the 
narrowness of their views. 
The limits of the distinction 
they had gained seemed to 
them as wide as the most 
extended renown ; and the 
little knowledge their youth 
had acquired only appeared 
to them an excuse for the 
ignorance and the indo- 
lence of maturer years. 
Was it to equal these that 
•I was to labour ? I felt that 
I already surpassed them. 
Was it to gain their good 
opinion, or, still worse, that 
of their admirers? Alas! I 
had too long learned to live 
for myself to find any happi- 
ness in the respect of the 
idlers I despised. 

I left Oxford at the age 
of twenty-one. I succeeded 
to the large estates of my 
inheritance, and for the first 
time I felt the vanity so 
natural to youth when I 
went up to London to enjoy 
the resources of the Capital, 
and to display the powers I 
possessed to revel in what- 
ever those resources could 
yield. I found society like 
the Je wish te mple ; any one is [ 


admitted into its threshold ; 
none but the chiefs of the 
institution into its recesses. 

Young, rich, of an ancient 
and honourable name, pur- 
suing pleasure rather as a 
necessary excitement than 
an occasional occupation, 
and agreeable to the asso- 
ciates I drew around me 
because my profusion con- 
tributed to their enjoyment, 
and my temper to their 
amusement — I found my- 
self courted by many, and 
avoided by none. I soon 
discovered that all civility 
is but the mask of design. 
I smiled at the kindness of 
the fathers who, hearing 
that I was talented, and 
knowing that I was rich, 
looked to my support in 
whatever political side they 
had espoused. I saw in the 
notes of the mothers their 
anxiety for the establish- 
ment of their daughters, 
and their respect for my 
acres ; and in the cordiality 
of the sons who had horses 
to sell, and rouge-et-noir 
debts to pay, I detected all 
that veneration for my mo- 
ney which implied such 
contempt for its possessor. 
By nature observant, and 
by misfortune sarcastic, I 
looked upon the various 
colourings of society with a 
searching and philosophic 
eye ; I unravelled the intri- 
cacies which knit servility 
with arrogance, and mean- 
ness with ostentation ; and 


FALKLAND. 


19 


I traced to its sources that 
universal vulgarity of in- 
ward sentiment and external 
manner, which, in all 
classes, appears to me to 
constitute the only unvary- 
ing characteristic of our 
countrymen. In proportion 
as I increased rny know- 
ledge of others, I shrunk 
with a deeper disappoint- 
ment and dejection into my 
own resources. The first 
moment of real happiness 
which I experienced for a 
whole year was w'hen I 
found myself about to seek, 
beneath the influence of 
other skies, that more ex- 
tended acquaintance with 
my species which might 
either draw me to them 
with a closer connection, or 
at least reconcile me to the 
ties which already existed. 

I will not dwell upon my 
adventures abroad ; there is 
little to interest others in a 
recital which awakes no 
interest in oneself I sought 
for wisdom, and I acquired 
but knowledge. I thirsted 
for the truth, the tenderness 
of love, and I found but its 
fever and its falsehood. 
Like the two Florimels of 
Spenser, I mistook, in my 
delirium, the delusive fabri- 
cation of the senses for the 
divine reality of the heart ; 
and I only awoke from my 
deceit when the phantom 
I had worshipped melted 
into snow. Whatever I 
pursued partook of the 


energy, yet fitfulness of my 
nature ; mingling to-day in 
the tumults of the city, and 
to-morrow alone wdth my 
own heart in the solitude of 
unpeopled nature ; now 
revelling in the wildest ex- 
cesses, and now tracing, 
with a painful and unwear- 
ied search, the intricacies 
of science; alternately go- 
verping others, and subdued 
by the tyranny which my 
owm passions imposed — I 
passed through the ordeal 
unshrinking, yet not un- 
scathed. “The education 
of life,” says De Stael, 
“ perfects the thinking 
mind, but depraves the 
frivolous.” I do not in- 
quire, Monkton, to which 
of these classes I belong; 
but I feel too w'ell, that 
though rny mind has not 
been depraved, it has found 
no perfection but in misfor- 
tune ; and that whatever be 
the acquirements of later 
years, they have nothing 
which can compensate for 
the losses of our youth. 


From the Same to the Same. 

I RETURNED to England. 
I entered again upon the 
theatre of its world ; but I 
mixed now more in its great- 
er than its lesser pursuits. I 
looked rather at the mass 


20 


FALKLAND. 


than the leaven of mankind ; 
and while I felt aversion for 
the few whom I knew, I 
glowed with philanthropy 
for the crowd which I knew 
not. 

It is in contemplating 
men at a distance that we 
become benevolent. When 
we mix with them, we suf- 
fer by the contact, and grow, 
if not malicious from the in- 
jury, at least selfish from 
the circumspection which 
our safety imposes: but 
when, while we feel our re- 
lationship, we are not galled 
by the tie ; when neither 
jealousy, nor envy, nor re- 
sentment are excited, we 
have nothing to interfere 
with those more compla- 
cent and kindly sentiments 
which our earliest impres- 
sions have rendered natural 
to our hearts. We may fly 
men in hatred because they 
have galled us, but the feel- 
ing ceases with the cause: 
none will willingly feed long 
upon bitter thoughts. It is 
thus that, while in the nar- 
row circle in which we move 
we suffer daily from those 
who approach us, we can, 
in spite of our resentment 
to them, glow with a general 
benevolence to the wider re- 
lations from which we are 
remote ; that while smarting 
beneath the treachery of 
friendship, the sting of in- 
gratitude, the faithlessness 
of love, we would almost 
sacrifice our lives to realize 


some idolized theory of le- 
gislation ; and that, distrust- 
ful, calcidating, selfish in 
private, there are thousands 
who would, with a credu- 
lous fanaticism, fling them- 
selves as victims before 
that unrecompensing Mo- 
loch which they term the 
Public. 

Living, then, much by 
myself, but reflecting much 
upon the world, I learned 
to love mankind. Philan- 
thropy brought ambition , 
for I was ambitious, not for 
my own aggrandizement, 
but for the service of others 
— for the poor — the toiling 
— the degraded : these con- 
stituted that part of my fel- 
low beings wdiich I the most 
loved, for these were bound 
to me by the most engaging 
of all human ties — misfor- 
tune ! I began to enter into 
the intrigues of the state; 
I extended my observation 
and inquiry^from individuals 
to nations; I examined into 
the mysteries of the science 
which has arisen in these 
later days to give the lie te 
the wisdom of the past, to 
reduce into the simplicity 
of problems the intricacies 
of political knowledge, to 
teach us the fallacy of the 
system which had governed 
by restriction, and imagined 
that the happiness of na- 
tions depended upon the 
perpetual interference of 
its rulers ; and to prove to 
us that the only unerring 


FALKLAND. 


21 


policy of art is to leave a 
free and unobstructed pro- 
gress to the hidden energies 
and providence of Nature. 
But it was not only the 
theoretical investigation of 
the state which employed 
me. I mixed, though in 
secret, with the agents of 
its springs. While I seem- 
ed only intent upon plea- 
sure, I locked in my heart 
the consciousness and vanity 
of power. In the levity of 
the lip I disguised the work- 
ings and the knowledge of the 
brain ; and I looked, as with 
a gifted eye, upon the mys- 
teries of the hidden depths, 
while I seemed to float an 
idler, with the herd, only 
on the surface of the stream. 

Why was I disgusted, 
when I had but to put forth 
my hand and grasp what- 
ever object my ambition 
might desire ? Alas ! there 
was in my heart always 
something too soft for the 
aims and cravings of my 
mind. I felt that I was 
wasting the young years of 
my life in a barren and wea- 
risome pursuit. What to me, 
who had outlived vanity, 
would have been the admi- 
ration of the crowd ? I sigh- 
ed for the sympathy of the 
one! and I shrunk in sad- 
ness from the prospect of 
renown to ask my heart for 
the reality of love! For 
what purpose, too, had I 
devoted myself to the ser- 
vice of men? As I grew 
2 


more sensible of the labour 
of pursuing, I saw more of 
the inutility of accomplish- 
ing, individual measures. 
There is one great and mov- 
ing order of events which 
we may retard, but we can- 
not arrest, and to which, 
if we endeavour to hasten 
them, we only give a danger- 
ous and unnatural impetus. 
Often, when in the fever of 
the midnight, I have paused 
from my unshared and un- 
softened studies, to listen to 
the deadly pulsation of my 
heart,* when I have felt in 
its painful and tumultuous 
beating the very life waning 
and wasting within me, I 
have sickened to my in- 
most soul to remember that, 
amongst all those whom I 
was exhausting the health 
and enjoyment of youth to 
benefit, there was not one 
for whom my life had an 
interest, or by whom my 
death would be honoured 
by a tear. There is a beau- 
tiful passage in Chalmers 
on the want of sympathy 
we experienoe in the world. 
From my earliest childhood 
I had one deep, engrossing, 
yearning desire, — and that 
was to love and to be loved. 
I found, too young, the 
realization of that dream — 
it past! and I have never 
known it again. The ex- 
perience of long and bitter 

* Falkland suffered much, from 
rery early youth, from a complaini 
in his heart. 


22 


FALKLAND. 


years teaches me to look 
with suspicion on that far 
recollection of the past, and 
to doubt if this earth could 
indeed nroduce a living form 
to satisry the visions of one 
who has dwelt among the 
boyish creations of fancy — 
who has shaped out in his 
heart an imaginary idol, ar- 
rayed it in whatever is most 
beautiful in nature, and 
breathed into the image the 
pure but burning spirit of 
that innate love from which 
it sprung ! It is true that 
my manhood has been the 
undeceiver of my youth, 
and that the meditation up- 
on facts has disenthralled 
me from the visionary brood- 
ings over fiction ; but what 
remuneration have I found 
in reality ? If the line of 
the satirist be not true, 
“ Souvent de tous nos maux 
la raison est le pire,”* — at 
least, like the madman of 
whom he speaks, I owe but 
little gratitude to the act 
which, “ in drawing me 
from my error, has robbed 
me also of a paradise.” 

I am approaching the con- 
clusion of my confessions. 
Men who have no ties in the 
world, and who have been 
accustomed to solitude, find, 
with every disappointment 
in the former, a greater 


yearning for the enjoyments 
which the latter can afford. 
Day by day I relapsed more 
into myself ; “ man delighted 
me not, nor woman either.” 
In my ambition, it was not 
in the means, but the end 
that I was disappointed. In 
my friends, 1 complained 
not of treachery, but insip- 
idity ; and it was not because 
I was deserted, but wearied 
by more tender connexions, 
that I ceased to find either 
excitement in seeking, or 
triumph in obtaining, their 
love. It was not, then, in a 
momentary disgust, but ra- 
ther in the calm of satiety, 
that I formed that resolution 
of retirement which I have 
adopted now. 

Shrinking from my kind, 
but too young to live wholly 
for myself, I have made a 
new tie with nature; I have 
come to cement it here. I 
am like a bird which has 
wandered afar, but has re- 
turned home to its nest at 
last. But there is one feel- 
ing which had its origin in 
the world, and which ac- 
companies me still; which 
consecrates my recollections 
of the past; which contri- 
butes to take its gloom from 
the solitude of the present : — 
Do you ask me its nature, 
Monkton ? It is my friend- 
ship for you. 


* Boileau. 


FALKLAND. 


23 


From the same to the same. 

I WISH that I could con- 
vey to you, dear Monkton, 
the faintest idea of the plea- 
sures of indolence. You 
belong to that class which 
is of all the most busy, 
though the least active. 
Men of pleasure never have 
time for anything. No law- 
yer, no statesman, no bust- 
ling, hurrying, restless un- 
derling of the counter or the 
Exchange, is so eternally 
occupied as a lounger 
“ about town.” He is linked 
to labour by a series of unde- 
finable nothings. His inde- 
pendence and idleness only 
serve to fetter and engross 
him, and his leisure seems 
held upon the condition of 
never having a moment to 
himself. Would that you 
could see me at this instant 
in the luxury of my summer 
retreat, surrounded by the 
trees, the waters, the wild 
birds, and the hum, the 
glow, the exultation which 
teem visibly and audibly 
through creation in the noon 
of a summer’s day ! I am 
undisturbed by a single in- 
truder. I am unoccupied 
by a single pursuit. I suffer 
one moment to glide into 
another, without the remem- 
brance that the next must 
be filled up by some labori- 
ous pleasure, or some weari- 
some enjoyment. It is here 
that I feel all the powers, 


and gather together all the 
resources of my mind. I 
recall my recollections of 
men ; and, unbiassed by the 
passions and prejudices 
which we do not experience 
alone, because their very 
existence depends upon 
others, I endeavour to per- 
fect my knowledge of the 
human heart. He who 
would acquire that better 
science must arrange and 
analyse in private the expe- 
rience he has collected in 
the crowd. Alas, Monkton, 
when you have expressed 
surprise at the gloom which 
is so habitual to my temper, 
did it never occur to you 
that my acquaintance with 
the world would alone be 
sufficient to account for it? — 
that knowledge is neither 
for the good nor the happy. 
Who can touch pitch, and 
not be defiled? Who can 
look upon the workings of 
grief and rejoice, or associate 
with guilt and be pure ? 

It has been by mingling 
with men, not only in their 
haunts but their emotions, 
that,! have learned to know 
them. I have descended 
into the receptacles of vice ; 
I have taken lessons from 
the brothel and the hell; I 
have watched feeling in its 
unguarded sallies, and 
drawn from the impulse of 
the moment conclusions 
which gave the lie to the 
previous conduct of years. 
But all knowledge brings us 


24 


FALKLAND. 


disappointment, and this 
knowledge the most — the 
satiety of good, the suspicion 
of evil, the decay of our 
young dreams, the prema- 
ture iciness of age, the reck- 
less, aimless, joyless indilfer- 
ence which follows an over- 
wrought and feverish excita- 
tion — These constitute the 
lot of men who have re- 
nounced hope in the acquisi- 
tion of thought, and who, in 
learning the motives of 
human actions, learn only 
to despise the persons and 
the things which enchanted 
them like divinities before; 


From the same to the same. 

I TOLD you, dear Monkton, 
in my first letter, of my fa- 
vourite retreat in Mr. Man- 
deville’s grounds. I have 
grown so attached to it, that 
I spend the greater part of 
the day there. I am not 
one of those persons who 
always perambulate with a 
book in their hands, as if 
neither nature nor their own 
reflections could afford them 
any rational amusement. I 
go there more frequently en 
paresseux than en savant; a 
small brooklet which runs 
through the grounds, broad- 
ens at last into a deep, clear, 
transparent lake. Here fir, 
and elm, and oak fling their 


branches over the margin ; 
and beneath their shade I 
pass all the hours of noon- 
day in the luxuries of a 
dreamer’s reverie. It is 
true, however, that I am 
never less idle than when I 
appear the most so. I am 
like Prospero in his desert 
island, and surround myself 
with spirits. A spell trem- 
bles upon the leaves ; every 
wave comes fraught to me 
with its peculiar music; 
and an Ariel seems to 
whisper the secrets of every 
breeze, which comes to my 
forehead laden with the per- 
fumes of the West. But do 
not think, Monkton, that it 
is only good spirits which 
haunt the recesses of my 
solitude. To push the meta- 
phor to exaggeration — Me- 
mory is my Sy corax, and 
Gloom is the Caliban she 
conceives. But let me di- 
gress from myself to my less 
idle occupations: — I have 
of late diverted my thoughts 
in some measure by a recur- 
rence to a study to which I 
once w'as particularly de- 
voted — history. Have you 
ever remarked, that people 
who live the most by them- 
selves, reflect the most upon 
others; and that he who 
lives surrounded by the 
million, never thinks of any 
but the one individual — 
himself? Philosophers — 

moralists — historians, whose 
thoughts, labours, lives, have 
been devoted to the conside- 


FALKLAND. 


25 


ration of mankind, or the 
analysis of public events, 
have usually been remark- 
ably attached to solitude and 
seclusion. We are indeed 
so linked to our fellow- 
beings, that, where we are 
not chained to them by 
action, we are carried to and 
connected with them by 
thought. 

I have just quitted the 
observations of my favorite 
Bolingbroke upon history. 
I cannot agree with him as 
to its utility. The more I 
consider, the more I am con- 
vinced that its study has 
been upon the whole perni- 
cious to mankind. It is by 
those details, which are al- 
ways as unfair in their 
inference as they must 
evidently be doubtful in 
their facts, that party ani- 
mosity and general prejudice 
are supported and sustained. 
There is not one abuse — one 
intolerance — one remnant of 
ancient barbarity and ignor- 
ance existing at the present 
day, which is not advocated, 
and actually confirmed by 
some vague deduction from 
the bigotry of an illiterate 
chronicler, or the obscurity 
of an uncertain legend. It 
is through the constant ap- 
peal to our ancestors that we 
transmit wretchedness and 
wrong to our posterity : we 
should require to corroborate 
an evil originating in the 
present day, the clearest and 
most satisfactory proof; but 


the minutest defence is suffi- 
cient for an evil handed 
down to us by the barbarism 
of antiquity. We reason 
from what even in old times 
was dubious, as if we were 
adducing wdiat was certain 
in those in which we live. — 
An thus we have made no 
sanction to abuses so power- 
ful as history, and no enemy 
to the present like the past. 


From the' Lady Emily Mande- 
ville to Mrs. St. John. 

At last, my dear Julia, I 
am settled in my beautiful 
retreat. Mrs. Dalton and 
Lady Margaret Leslie are all 
whom I could prevail upon 
to accompany me. Mr. Man- 
deville is full of the corn- 
laws. He is chosen chair- 
man to a select committee in 
the House. He is murmur- 
ing agricultural distresses in 
his sleep ; and when I ask- 
ed him occasionally to come 
down here to see me, he 
started from a reverie, and 
exclaimed — “ Never, Mr. 
Speaker, as a landed pro- 
prietor ; never will I consent 
to my ow'n ruin,” 

My boy, my own, my 
beautiful companion, is with 
me. I wish you could see 
how fast he can run, and 
how sensibly he can talk; — 
“ What a fine figure he has 


26 


FALKLAND. 


for his age !” said I to Mr. 
Mandeville the other day ; 
“Figure! age!” said his 
father; “in the House of 
Commons he shall make a 
figure to every age.” I know 
that in writing to you, you 
will not be contented if I do 
not say a great deal about 
myself. I shall therefore 
proceed to tell you, that I 
feel already much better 
from the air and exercise of 
the journey, from the con- 
versation of my two guests, 
and above all, from the con- 
stant society of my dear boy. 
He was three last birth-day. 
I think that at the age of 
twenty-one, I am the 
least childish of the two. — 
Pray remember me to all in 
town who have not quite for- 
gotten me. Beg Lady , 

to send Elizabeth a sub- 
scription ticket for Almack’s, 
and — oh talking of Almack’s, 
I think my boy’s eyes are 
even more blue and beauti- 
ful than Lady C ’s. 

Adieu, my dear Julia, 
Ever, &c., 

E. M. 


Lady Emil}'- Mandeville 
was the daughter of the 
Duke of Lindvale. She mar- 
ried, at the age of sixteen, a 
man of large fortune, and 
some parliamentary reputa- 
tion. Neither in person nor 
in character was he much be- 
neath or above the ordinary 
standard of men. He was 


one of Nature’s Macadamiz- 
ed achievements. His great 
fault was his equality ; and 
you longed for a hill though 
it were to climb, or a stone 
though it were in your way. 
Love attaches itself to some- 
thing prominent, even if that 
something be what others 
would hate. One can scarce- 
ly feel extremes for medio- 
crity. The few years Lady 
Emily had been married, 
had but little altered her 
character. Quick in feeling, 
though regulated in temper ; 
gay, less from levity, than 
from that first spring tide, of 
a heart which has never 
yet known occasion to be 
sad; beautiful and pure, as 
an enthusiast’s dream of 
heaven, yet bearing within 
the latent and powerful pas- 
sion and tenderness of earth ; 
she mixed with all a sim- 
plicity and innocence which 
the extreme earliness of her 
marriage, and the ascetic 
temper of her husband, had 
tended less to diminish than 
increase. She had much 
of what is termed genius — 
its warmth of emotion — its 
vividness of conception — its 
admiration for the grand — 
its affection for the good, 
and that dangerous con- 
tempt for whatever is mean 
and worthless, the very in- 
dulgence of which is an 
offence against the habits of 
the world. Her tastes w’ere, 
how'ever, too feminine and 
chaste ever to render her 


FALKLAND. 


27 


eccentric : they were rather 
calculated to conceal, than 
to publish the deeper re- 
cesses of her nature ; and it 
was beneath that polished 
surface of manner common 
to those with whom she 
mixed, that she hid the 
treasures of a mine which 
no human eye had beheld. 

Her health, naturally deli- 
cate, had lately suffered 
much from the dissipation 
of London, and it was by 
the advice of her physicians 
that she had now come to 

spend the summer at E . 

Lady Margaret Leslie, who 
was old enough to be tired 
with the caprices of society, 
and Mrs. Dalton, who, hav- 
ing just lost her husband, 
was forbidden at present to 
partake of its amusements, 
had agreed to accompany 
her to her retreat. Neither 
of them was perhaps much 
suited to Emily’s temper, but 
youth and spirits make al- 
most any one congenial to 
us : it is from the years 
which confirm our habits, 
and the reflections which re- 
fine our taste, that it be- 
comes easy to revolt us, and 
difficult to please. 

On the third day after 

Emily’s arrival at E , 

she was sitting after break- 
fast with Lady Margaret 
and Mrs. Dalton. “ Pray,” 
said the former, “did you 
ever meet my relation, Mr. 
Falkland ? he is in your im- 
mediate neighbourhood.” 


“ Never ; though I have a 
great curiosity : that fine 
old ruin beyond the village 
belongs to him, I believe.” 
“It does: you ought to 
know him : you would like 
him so!” “Like him?” * 
repeated Mrs. Dalton, who 
was one of those persons of 
ton who, though every thing 
collectively, are nothing in- 
dividually ; — “ Like him ? 
impossible !” “ Why,” said. 

Lady Margaret, indignantly, 
“he has every requisite to 
please — ^youth, talent, fasci- 
nation of manner, and great 
knowledge of the wmrld.” 
“Well,” said Mrs. Dalton, 

“ I cannot say I discovered 
his perfections. He seemed 
to me conceited and satirical, 
and — and — in short, very 
disagreeable ; but then, to be 
sure, I have only seen him 
onceP “ I have heard many 
accounts of him,” said Emi- 
ly, “ all differing from each 
other : I think, however, 
that the generality of people 
rather incline to Mrs. Dal- 
ton’s opinion than to yours. 
Lady Margaret.” “I can 
easily believe it. It is very 
seldom that he takes the 
trouble to please ; but when 
he does, he is irresistible. 
Very little; however, is gen- 
erally known respecting 
him. Since he came of age, 
he has been much abroad ; 
and when in England, he 
never entered wd'th eager- 
ness into society. He is 
supposed to possess very ex- 


28 


FALKLAND. 


traordinary powers, which, 
added to his large fortun-e 
and ancient name, have pro- 
cured him a consideration 
and rank rarely enjoyed by 
* one so young. He has re- 
fused repeated offers to enter 
into public life ; but he is 
very intimate with one of 
the ministers, who it is said, 
has had the address to profit 
much by his abilities. All 
other particulars concerning 
him are extremely uncer- 
tain. Of his person and 
manners you had better 
judge yourself ; for I am 
sure, Emily, that my petition 
for inviting him here is al- 
ready granted.” “ By all 
means,” said Emily: “you 
cannot be more anxious to 
see him than I am.” And 
so the conversation dropped. 
Lady Margaret went to the 
library ; Mrs. Dalton seated 
herself on the ottoman, di- 
viding her attention between 
the last novel and her Italian 
greyhound; and Emily left 
the room in order to revisit 
her former and favourite 
haunts. Her young son was 
her companion, and she w'as 
not sorry that he was her 
only one. To be the in- 
structress of an infant, a 
mother should be its play- 
mate ; and E mily was, 
perhaps, wiser than she 
imagined, when she ran 
with a laughing eye and a 
light foot over the grass, 
occupying herself almost 
with the same earnestness 


as her child in the same in- 
fantine amusements. As 
they passed the wood which 
led to the lake at the bottom 
of the grounds, the boy, who 
was before Emily, suddenly 
stopped. She came hastily 
up to him ; and scarcely two 
paces before, though halt 
hid by the steep bank of the 
lake beneath which he re- 
clined, she saw a man appa- 
rently asleep. A volume ot 
Shakspeare lay beside him : 
the child had seized it. As 
she took it from him in order 
to replace it, her eye rested 
upon the passage the boy 
had accidentally opened. 
How often in after days was 
that passage recalled as an 
omen ! it was the follow- 
ing 

Ah me ! for aught that ever I could 
read, 

Could ever hear by tale or history — 
The course of true love never did run 
smooth ! 

Midsummer Night's Dream, 

As she laid the book gently 
down, she caught a glimpse 
of the countenance of the 
sleeper : never did she for- 
get the expression which it 
wore, — stern, proud, mourn- 
ful even in repose ! 

She did not wait for him 
to awake. She hurried 
home through the trees. 
All that day she was silent 
and abstracted ; the face 
haunted her like a dream. 
Strange as it may seem, she 
spoke neither to Lady Mar- 


FALKLAND. 


29 




garet’s nor to Mrs. Dalton 
of her adventure. Why ? 
Is there in our hearts any 
prescience of their misfor- 
tune ? 

On the next day, Falk- 
land, who had received and 
accepted Lady Margaret’s 
invitation, was expected to 
dinner. Emily felt a strong 
yet excusable curiosity to 
see one of whom she had 
heard so many and such 
contradictory reports. She 
was alone in the saloon when 
he entered. At the first 
glance she recognized the 
person she had met by the 
lake on the day before, and 
she blushed deeply as she re- 
lied to his salutation. To 
er great relief Lady Mar- 
garet and Mrs. Dalton enter- 
ed in a few minutes, and the 
conversation grew general. 

Falkland had but little of 
what is called animation in 
manner ; but his wit, though 
it rarely led to mirth, was 
sarcastic yet refined, and 
the vividness of his ima- 
gination threw a bril- 
liancy and originality over 
remarks which in others 
might have been common- 
place and tame. 

The conversation turned 
chiefly upon society ; and 
though Lady Margaret had 
told her he had entered. but 
little into its ordinary rou- 
tine, Emily was struck alike 
by his accurate acquaintance 
with men, and the justice of 


his reflections upon man- 
ners. There also mingled 
with his satire an occasional 
melancholy of feeling, which 
appeared to Emily the more 
touching because it was 
always unexpected and un- 
assumed. It was after one 
of these remarks, that for 
the first time she ventured 
to examine into the charm 
and peculiarity of the coun- 
tenance of the speaker. — 
There was spread over it 
that expression of mingled 
energy and languor, which, 
betokens that much, wheth- 
er of thought, sorrow, pas- 
sion, or action, has been un- 
dergone, but resisted, has 
wearied, but not subdued. 
In the broad and noble brow, 
in the chiselled lip, and the 
melancholy depths of the 
calm and thoughtful eye, 
there sat a resolution and a 
power,which, though mourn- 
ful, were not without their 
pride; which, if they had 
borne the worst, had also de- 
fied it. Notwithstanding his 
mother’s country, his com- 
plexion was fair and pale; 
and his hair, of a light chest- 
nut, fell in large antique 
curls over his forehead. — 
That forehead, indeed, con- 
stituted the principal feature 
of his countenance. It was 
neither in its height nor ex- 
pansion alone that its re- 
markable beauty consisted ; 
but if ever thought to con- 
ceive, and courage to exe- 


30 


FALKLAND. 


cute high designs were em- 
bodied and visible, they 
were imprinted there. 

Falkland did not stay long 
after dinner; but to Lady 
Margaret he promised all 
that she required of future 
length and frequency in his 
visits. When he left the 
room, Lady Emily went in- 
stinctively to the window to 
watch him depart; and all 
that night his low soft voice 
rung in her ear, like the 
music of an indistinct and 
half-remembered dream. 




From Mr. Mandeville to Lady 
Emily. 

Dear Emily, 

Business of great import- 
ance to the country has pre- 
vented my writing to you 
before. I hope you have 
continued well since I heard 
from you last, and that you 
do all you can to preserve 
that retrenchment of un- 
necessary expenses, and ob- 
serve that attention to a 
prudent economy, which is 
no less incumbent upon 
individuals than' nations. 
Thinking that you must 

be dull at E , and ever 

anxious both to entertain and 
to improve you, I send you 
an excellent publication by 
Mr. Tooke,* together with 

* The Political Economist ? 


my own two last speeches, 
corrected by myself. 

Trusting to hear from you 
soon, I am, with best love to 
Henry, 

Very affectionately 
yours, 

John Mandeville. 


From. Erasmus Falkland, Esq., 

to the Hon. Frederick Monk- 

ton.^ 

Well, Monkton, I have 
been to E ; that import- 

ant event in my monastic life 
has been concluded. Lady 
Margaret was as talkative as 
usual; and a Mrs. Dalton, 
who, I find, is an acquaint- 
ance of yours, asked very 
tenderly after your poodle 
and yourself. But Lad}- 
Emily ! Aye, Monkton, I 
know not well how to de- 
scribe her to you. Her beauty 
interests not less than it 
dazzles. There is that deep 
and eloquent softness in her 
every word and action, 
which, of all charms, is the 
most dangerous. Yet she is 
rather of a playful than of 
the melancholy and pensive 
nature which generally ac- 
companies such gentleness 
of manner ; but there is no 
levity in her character ; nor 

* A letter from Falkland, mention- 
ing Lady MargaxePs invitation has 
been omitted. 


FALKLAND. 


31 


is that playfulness of spirit 
ever carried into the ex- 
hilaration of what we call 
“mirth.” She seems, if I 
may use the antithesis, at 
once too feeling to be gay, 
and too innocent to be sad. 
I remember having frequent- 
ly met her husband. Cold 
and pompous, without any 
thing to interest the imagina- 
tion, or engage the affections, 
I am not able to conceive a 
erson less congenial to his 
eautiful and romantic wife. 
But she must have been ex- 
ceedingly youiig when she 
married him ; and she, pro- 
bably, knows not yet that 
she is to be pitied because 
she has not yet learned that 
she can love. 

Le veggio in fronte amor come in suo 
seggio 

Sul crin, negli occhi — su le labra 
amore 

Sol d’intorno al suo cuore amore non 
veggio. 

I have been twice to her 
house since my first admis- 
sion there. I love to listen 
to that soft and enchanting 
voice, and to escape from the 
gloom of my own reflections 
to the brightness, yet sim- 
plicity, of hers. In my 
earlier days this comfort 
would have been attended 
with danger; but we grow 
callous from the excess of 
feelirig. We cannot re-il- 
lumine ashes! I can gaze 
upon her dream-like beauty, 
and not experience a single 


desire which can sully the 
purity of my worship. I 
listen to her voice when it 
melts in endearment over 
her birds, her flowers, or in 
a deeper devotion, over her 
child ; but my heart does not 
thrill at the tenderness of 
the sound. I touch her 
hand, and the pulses of my 
own are as calm as before. 
Satiety of the past is our 
best safeguard from the 
temptations of the future; 
and the perils of youth are 
over when it has acquired 
that dullness and apathy of 
affection which should be- 
long only to the insensibility 
of age. 

Such were Falkland’s 
opinions at the time he 
wrote. Ah ! what is so de- 
lusive as our affections ? 
Our security is our danger 
— our defiance our defeat! 
Day after day he went to 

E . He passed the 

mornings in making excur- 
sions with Emily over that 
wild and romantic country 
by which they were sur- 
rounded ; and in the danger- 
ous but delicious stillness of 
the summer twilights, they 
listened to the first whispers 
of their hearts. 

In his relationship to Lady 
Margaret, Falkland found 
his excuse for the frequency 
of his visits ; and even Mrs. 
Dalton was so charmed with 
the fascination of his manner, 
that (in spite of her previous 


32 


FALKLAND. 


dislike) she forgot to inquire 
how far his intimacy at 

E was at variance with 

the proprieties of the world 
she worshipped, or in what 
proportion it was connected 
with herself 

It is needless for me to 
trace through all its wind- 
ings the formation of that 
affection, the subsequent re- 
cords of which I am about 
to relate. What is so un- 
earthly, so beautiful, as the 
first birth of a woman’s 
love ? The air of heaven 
not purer in its wanderings 
— ^its sunshine not more holy 
in its warmth. Oh! why 
should it deteriorate in its 
nature, even while it in- 
creases in its degree? Why 
should the step which 
prints, sully also the snow? 
How often, when Falkland 
met that guiltless, yet thrill- 
ing eye, which revealed to 
him those internal secrets 
that Emily was yet awhile 
too happy to discover; 
w'hen, like a fountain among 
flowers, the goodness of her 
heart flowed over the soft- 
ness of her manner to those 
around her, and the benevo- 
lence of her actions to those 
beneath ; how often he 
turned away with a venera- 
ration too deep for the sel- 
fishness of human passion, 
and a tenderness too sacred 
for its desires ! It was in 
this temper (the earliest and 
the most fruitless prognostic 


of real love) that the follow- 

ing letter was written : — 

From Erasmus Falkland, Esq,, 
to the Hon. Frederick Monkton. 

I have had two or three 
admonitory letters from my 
uncle. “The summer (he 
says) is advancing, yet you 
remain stationary in your 
indolence. There is still a 
great part of Europe which 
you have not seen ; and 
since you will neither enter 
society for a wife, nor the 
House of Commons for fame, 
spend your life, at least 
while it is yet free and un- 
shackled, in those active pur- 
suits which will render idle- 
ness hereafter more sweet; 
or in that observation and 
enjoyment among others, 
which will increase your re- 
sources in yourself.” All 
this sounds well ; but I 
have already acquired more 
knowledge than will be of 
use either to others or my- 
self, and I am not willing to 
lose tranquillity here for the 
chance of obtaining pleasure 
elsewhere. Pleasure is in- 
deed a holyday sensation 
which does not occur in or- 
dinary life. We lose the 
peace of years when we 
hunt after the rapture of 
moments. 

I do not know if you ever 
felt that existence was ebb- 
ing away without being put 
to its full value ; as for me, 
I am never conscious of life 


FALKLAND. 


33 


without being also conscious 
that it is not enjoyed to the 
utmost. This is a bitter 
feeling, and its worst bitter- 
ness is our ignorance how 
to remove it. My indolence 
I neither seek nor wish to 
defend, yet it is rather from 
necessity than choice : it 
seems to me that there is 
nothing in the world to 
arouse me. I only ask for 
action, but I can find no mo- 
tive sufiicient to excite it; 
let me then, in my indo- 
lence, not, like the world, be 
idle, yet dependent on 
others ; but at least dignify 
the failing by some appear- 
ance of that freedom which 
retirement only can bestow. 

My seclusion is no longer 
solitude ; yet I do not value 
it the less. I spend a great 

portion of my time at E 

Loneliness is attractive to 
men of reflection, not so 
much because they like 
their own thoughts, as be- 
cause they dislike the 
thoughts of others. Solitude 
ceases to charm the moment 
we can find a single being 
whose ideas are more agree- 
able to us than our own. I 
have not, I think, yet de- 
scribed to you the person of 
Lady Emily. She is tall, 
and slightly, yet beautifully, 
formed. The ill health 
which obliged her to leave 

London for E , in the 

height of the season, has 
given her cheek a more de- 


licate hue than I should 
think it naturally w'ore. 
Her eyes are light, but their 
lashes are long and dark; 
her hair is black and luxu- 
riant, and worn in a fashion 
peculiar to herself; but her 
manners, Monkton ! how 
can I convey to you their 
fascination ? so simple, and 
therefore so faultless — so 
modest, and yet so tender — 
she seems, in acquiring the 
intelligence of the woman, 
to have only perfected the 
purity of the child : and 
now, after all that I have 
said, I am more deeply sen- 
sible of the truth of Bacon’s 
observation, that “the best 
part of beauty is that which 
no picture can express.” I 
am loth to finish- this de- 
scription, because it seems 
to me scarcely .begun ; I am 
unwilling to continue it, 
because every word seems 
to show me more clearly 
those recesses of my heart, 
which I would have hidden 
even from myself I do not 
yet love, it is true, for the 
time is past when I was 
lightly moved to passion ; 
but I will not incur that 
danger, the probability of 
which I am seer enough to 
foresee. Never shall that 
pure and innocent heart be 
sullied by one who would 
die to shield it from the 
lightest misfortune. I find 
in myself a powerful sec- 
onder to my uncle’s wishes. 


34 


FALKLAND. 


I shall be in London , next 
week ; till then farewell. 

E. F. 


When the proverb said, 
that “ Jove laughs at lovers’ 
vows,” it meant not (as in 
the ordinary construction) a 
sarcasm on their insincerity, 
but inconsistency. We de- 
ceive others far less than we 
deceive ourselves. What 
to Falkland were resolu- 
tions which a word, a 
glance, could overthrow ? 
In the world he might have 
dissipated his thoughts : in 
loneliness he concentred 
them; for the passions are 
like the sounds of Nature, 
only heard in her solitude ! 
He lulled his soul to the re- 
roaches of his conscience ; 
e surrendered himself to 
the intoxication of so golden 
a dream; and amidst those 
beautiful scenes there arose, 
as an offering to the summer 
heaven, the incense of two 
hearts which had, through 
those very fires, so guilty in 
themselves, purified and 


ennobled every other emo- 
tion they had conceived. 

God made the country, and man made 
the town, 

says the hackneyed quota- 
tion ; and the feelings awa- 
kened in each differ with 
the genius of the place. 
Who can compare the frit- 
tered and divided affections 
formed in cities with that 
which crowds cannot dis- 
tract by opposing tempta- 
tions, or dissipation infect 
with its frivolities? 

I have often thought that 
had the execution of Attila 
equalled its design, no hu- 
man work could have sur- 
passed it in its grandeur. 
What picture is more simple, 
though more sublime, than 
the vast solitude of an un- 
peopled wilderness, the 
woods, the mountains, the 
face of nature, cast in the 
fresh, yet giant mould of a 
new and unpolluted world ; 
and, amidst those most silent 
and mighty temples of 
THE GREAT GOD, the 
lone spirit of Love reigning 
and brightening over all ? 


FALKLAND 


BOOK 11. 


It is dangerous for wo- 
men, however wise it be for 
men, “ to commune with 
their own hearts, and to be 
still!” Continuing to pur- 
sue the follies of the world 
had been to Emily more 
prudent than to fly them; 
to pause, to separate herself 
from the herd, was to disco- 
ver, to feel, to murmur at 
the vacuum of her being; 
and to occupy it with the 
feelings which it craved, 
could in her be but the 
hoarding a provision for de- 
spair. 

Married, before she had 
begun the bitter knowledge 
of herself, to a man whom it 
was impossible to love, yet 
deriving from nature a ten- 
derness of soul, which shed 
itself over every thing around, 
her only escape from misery 
had been in the dormancy 
of feeling. The birth of her 
son had opened to her a new 
field of sensations, and she 
drew the best charm of her 
own exiatencB fjom the life 
she had given to another. 
Had she not met Falkland, 
all the deeper sources of 
affection would have flowed 


into one only and legitimate 
channel; but those whom 
he wished to fascinate had 
never resisted his power, 
and the attachment he in- 
spired was in proportion to 
the strength and ardour of 
his own nature. 

It was not for Emily Man- 
deville to love such as Falk- 
land without feeling that 
from that moment a sepa- 
rate and selfish existence 
had ceased to be. Our senses 
may captivate us with beau- 
ty; but in absence we for- 
get, or by reason we can 
conquer, so superficial an 
impression. Our vanity may 
enamour us with rank ; but 
the affections of vanity are 
traced in sand : but who can 
love Genius, and not feel 
that the sentiments it excites 
partake of its own intense- 
ness and its own immortali- 
ty? It arouses, concentrates, 
engrosses all our emotions, 
even to the most subtle and 
concealed. Love what is 
common, and ordinary ob- 
jects can replace or destroy 
a sentiment which an ordi- 
nary object has awakened. 
Love what we shall not meet 
35 


36 


FALKLAND. 


again amidst the littleness 
and insipidity which sur- 
round us, and where can we 
turn for a new object to re- 
place that which has no pa- 
rallel upon earth ? The re- 
covery from such delirium 
is like the return from a 
fairy land ; and still fresh 
in the recollections of a 
bright and immortal clime, 
how can we endure the dul- 
ness of that human exist- 
ence to which for the future 
we are condemned ? 

It was some weeks since 
Emily had written to Mrs. 
St'. John; and her last let- 
ter, in mentioning Falkland, 
had spoken of him with a 
reserve which rather alarm- 
ed than deceived her friend. 
Mrs. St. John had indeed a 
strong and secret reason for 
fear. Falkland had been the 
object of her own and her 
earliest attachment, and she 
knew well the singular and 
mysterious power which he 
exercised at will over the 
mind. He had, it is true, 
never returned, nor even 
known of, her feelings to- 
wards him; and during the 
years which had elapsed 
since she last saw him, and 
in the new scenes which 
her marriage with Mr. St. 
John had opened, she had 
almost forgotten her early at- 
tachment, when Lady Emi- 
ly’s letter renewed its re- 
membrance. She wrote in 
answer an impassioned and 
affectionate caution to her 


friend. She spoke much 
(after complaining of Emi- 
ly’s late silence) in condem- 
nation of the character of 
Falkland, and in warning 
of its fascinations; and she 
attempted to arouse alike 
the virtue and the pride 
which so often triumph in 
alliance, when separately 
they would so easily fail. 
In this Mrs. St. John pro- 
bably imagined she was ac- 
tuated solely by friendship ; 
but in the best actions there 
is always some latent evil 
in the motive ; and the self- 
ishness of a jealousy, though 
hopeless not conquered, per- 
haps predominated over the 
less interested feelings which 
were all that she acknow- 
ledged to herself 

In this work, it has been 
my object to portray the 
progress of the passions ; to 
chronicle a history rather by 
thoughts and feelings than 
by incidents and events ; 
and to lay open those mi- 
nuter and more subtle mazes 
and secrets of the human 
heart, which in modern writ- 
ings have been so sparingly 
exposed. It is with this view 
that I have from time to time 
broken the thread of narra- 
tion, in order to bring for- 
ward* more vividly the cha- 
racters it contains; and in 
laying no claim to the ordi- 
nary ambition of tale wri- 
ters, I have deemed myself 
at liberty to deviate from 
the ordinary courses they 


FALKLAND. 


/ 


3T 


pursue. Hence the motive 
and the excuse for the in- 
sertion of the following ex- 
tracts, and of occasional let- 
ters. They portray the in- 
terior struggle wdien Narra- 
tion w’ould look only to the 
external event, and trace 
the lightning “ home to its 
cloud,” when History would 
only mark the spot where it 
scorched or destroyed. 


Extracts from the Journal of 
Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Tuesday . — More than sev- 
en years have passed since 
I began this journal ! I have 
just been looking over it 
from the commencement. — 
Many and various are the 
feelings which it attempts to 
describe, — anger, pique, joy, 
sorrow, hope, pleasure,weari- 
ness, ennui ; but never, never 
once humiliation or remorse ! 
— these w’ere not doomed to 
be my portion in the bright 
years of my earliest youth. 
How shall I describe them 
now ? I have received — I 
have read, as well as my 
tears w'ould let me, a long 
letter from Julia. It is true 
that I have not dared to 
write to her : when shall I 
answer this ? She has shown 
me the state of my heart ; I 
more than suspected it be- 
fore. Could I have dreamed 
3 


two months— six weeks since 
— that I should h4ve a single 
feeling of which I could be 
ashamed ? He has just been 
here — He — the only one in 
the world, for all the world 
seems concentred in him. — 
He observed my distress, for 
I looked on him ; and my 
lips quivered, and my eyes 
were full of tears. He came 
to me — he sat next to me — 
he whispered his interest, 
his anxiety — and was this 
all ? Have I loved before I 
ever knew that I was be- 
loved ? No, no ; the tongue 
was silent, but the eye, the 
cheek, the manner — alas ! 
these have been but too 
eloquent ! 

Wednesday. — It was so 
sw'eet to listen to his low and 
tender voice; to watch the 
expression of his counten- 
ance — even to breathe the 
air he inhaled. But now 
that I know its cause, I feel 
that this pleasure is a crime, 
and I am miserable even 
when he is with me. He 
has not been here to-day. 

It is past three. Will he 
come ? I rise from my seat 
— I go to the window for 
breath — I am restless, agita- 
ted, disturbed. Lady Mar- ^ 
garet speaks to me — I scarce- 
ly answer her. My boy 

yes, my dear, dear 

Henry comes, and I feel that 
I am again a mother. Never 
will I betray that duty, 
though I have forgotten one 
as sacred though less dear ! 


38 


FALKLAND. 


Never shall my son have 
cause to blush for his parent ! 
I Avill fly hence — I will see 
}iim no more ! 


From Erasmus Falkland Esq., 
to the Eon. Frederick Monk- 
ton. 

Write to me Monkton — 
exhort me, admonish me, or 
forsake me forever. I am 
happy, yet wretched ; I 
wander in the delirium of a 
fatal fever, in which I see 
dreams of a brighter life, but 
every one of them only brings 
me nearer to death. Day 
after day I have lingered 
here, until weeks have 
flown — and for what? Emi- 
ly is not like the women of 
the world — virtue, honour, 
faith, are not to her the mere 
convenances of society. — 
“ There is no crime,” said 
Lady A. “ where there is 
concealment.” Such can 
never be the creed of Emily 
Mandeville. She will not 
disguise guilt either in the 
levity of the world, or in 
the affectations of sentiment. 
She will be wretched, and 
forever, /hold the destinies 
of her future life, and yet I 
am base enough to hesitate 
whether to save or destroy 
her. Oh! how fearful, how 
selfish, how degrading is un- 
lawful love I 


You know my theoretical 
benevolence for every thing 
that lives; you have often 
smiled at its vanity. I see 
now that you w'ere right ; for 
it seems to me almost super- 
human virtue not to destroy 
the person who is dearest to 
me even on earth. 

I remember writing to 
you some weeks since that I 
would come to Loudon. — 
Little did I know of the 
weakness of my own mind. 
I told her that I intended to 
depart. She turned pale — 
she trembled, but she did not 
speak. Those signs which 
should have hastened my de- 
parture have taken away the 
strength even to think 
of it. 

I am here still ! I go to 
E every day. Some- 

times we sit in silence ; I 
dare not trust myself to 
speak. How dangerous are 
such moments ! Ammutiscon 
lingiie parlen Talme. 

Yesterday they left us 
alone. We had been con- 
versing with Lady Margaret 
on indifferent subjects. — 
There was a pause for' some 
minutes. I looked up; 
Lady Margaret had left the 
room. The blood rushed 
into my cheek — my eyes 
met Emily’s; I would have 
given worlds to have repeat- 
ed with my lips what those 
eyes expressed. I could not 
even speak — I felt choked 
with contending emotions. 
There was not a breath stir- 


FALKLAND. 


39 


ring ; I heard my very heart 
beat. A thunderbolt would 
have been a relief. Oh 
God ! if there be a curse, it 
is to burn, swell, madden 
with feelings which you are 
doomed to conceal ! This is, 
indeed, to be “ a cannibal of 
one’s own heart.”* 

It was sunset. Emily 
was alone upon the lawn 
which sloped towards the 
lake, and the blue still 
waters beneath broke, at 
bright intervals, through the 
scattered and illuminated 
trees. She stood watching 
the sun sink with wistful 
and tearful eyes. Her soul 
was sad within her. The 
ivy which love first wreathes 
around his work had already 
faded away, and she now 
only saw the desolation of 
the ruin it concealed. Never 
more for her was that fresh- 
ness of unawakened feeling 
which invests all things with 
a perpetual day -break of sun- 
shine, and incense, and dew. 
The heart may survive the 
decay or rupture of an inno- 
cent and lawful affection — 
“ la marque reste, mais la 
blessure guerit” — but the 
love of darkness and guilt is 
branded in a character inef- 
faceable — eternal ! The one 
is, like lightning, more like- 
ly to dazzle than to destroy, 
and, divine even in its danger, 
it makes holy what it sears ;t 

* Bacon. 

t According to the ancient supersti- 
tion. 


but the other is like that 
sure and deadly fire which 
fell upon the cities of 
old, graving in the barren- 
ness of the desert it had 
wrought the record and per- 
petuation of a curse. A low 
and thrilling voice stole upon 
Emily’s ear. She turned — 
Falkland stood beside her. 
“ I felt restless and unhap- 
py,” he said, “ and I came to 
seek you. If (writes one of 
the fathers) a guilty and 
wretched man could behold, 
though only for a few mi- 
nutes, the countenance of 
an angel, the calm and glory 
which it wears would so sink 
into his heart, that he would 
pass at once over the gulf 
of gone years into his first 
unsullied state of purity and 
hope : perhaps I thought of 
that sentence when I came 
to you.” “ I know not,” 
said Emily, with a deep 
blush at this address, which 
formed her only answer to 
the compliment it conveyed ; 
“ I know not why it is, but 
to me there is always some- 
thing melancholy in this 
hour — something mournful 
in seeing the beautiful day 
die with all its pomp and 
music, its sunshine and 
songs of birds.” 

“ And yet,” replied Falk- 
land, “ if I remember the 
time when my feelings were 
more in unison with yours, 
(for at present external ob- 
jects have lost for me much 
of their influence and attrac- 


40 


FALKLAND. 


tion) the melancholy you 
perceive has in it a vague 
and ineffable sweetness not 
to be exchanged for more 
exhilarated spirits. The 
melancholy which arises 
from no cause within our- 
selves is like music — it en- 
chants us in proportion to 
its effect upon our feelings. 

Perhaps, its chief charm 
(though this it requires the 
contamination of after years 
before we can fathom and 
define) is in the purity of 
the sources it springs from. 
Our feelings can be but little 
sullied and worn while they 
can yet respond to the pas- 
sionless and primal sympa- 
thies of nature ; and the 
sadness you speak of is so 
void of bitterness, so allied 
to the best and most delicious 
sensations we enjoy, that I 
should imagine the very hap- 
piness of Heaven partooh 
rather of melancholy than 
mirth." 

There was a pause of some 
moments. It was rarely 
that Falkland alluded even 
so slightly to the futurity of 
another world; and when 
he did, it was never in a 
careless and common-place 
manner, but in a tone which 
sank deep into Emily’s 
heart. “ Look,” she said, at 
length, “at that beautiful 
star ! the first and brightest ! 
I have often thought it was 
like the promise of life be- 
yond the tomb— ^a pledge to 
us that even in the depths 


of midnight, the earth shall 
have a light, unquenched 
and unquenchable, from 
Heaven !” 

Emily turned to Falkland 
as she said this, and her 
countenance sparkled with 
the enthusiasm she felt. 
But his face was deadly 
pale. There went over it, 
like a cloud, an expression 
of changeful and unutterable 
thought; and then passing 
suddenly away, it left his 
features calm and bright in 
all their noble and intel- 
lectual beauty. Her soul 
yearned to him, as she 
looked, with the tenderness 
of a sister. 

They walked slowly to- 
wards the house. “I have 
frequently,” said Emily 
with some hesitation, “been 
surprised at the little enthu- 
siasm you appear to possess 
even upon subjects where 
your conviction must be 
strong.” “/ have thought 
enthusiasm away!" replied 
Falkland : “ it was the loss 
of hope which brought me 
reflection, and in reflection 
I forgot to feel. Would that 
I had not found it so easy to 
recall what I thought I had 
lost forever!” 

Falkland’s cheek changed 
as he said this, and Emily 
sighed faintly, for she felt 
his meaning. In him that 
allusion to his love had 
aroused a whole train of 
dangerous recollections ; for 
Passion is the avalanche of 


FALKLAND. 


41 


the human heart — a single 
breath can dissolve it from its 
repose. 

They remained silent ; 
for Falkland would not trust 
himself to speak, till, when 
they reached the house, he 
faltered out his excuses for 
not entering, and departed. 
He turned towards his soli- 
tary home. The grounds at 

E had been laid out in 

a classical and costly man- 
ner, which contrasted for- 
cibly with the wild and 
simple nature of the sur- 
rounding scenery. Even 
the short distance betweeii 
Mr. Mandeville’s house and 

L wrought as distinct a 

change in the character of 
the country as any length 
of space could have effected. 
Falkland’s ancient and ruin- 
ous abode, with its shattered 
arches and moss-grown para- 
pets, was situated on a 
gentle declivity, and sur- 
rounded by dark elm and 
larch trees. It still retained 
some traces both of its for- 
mer consequence, and of the 
perils to which that conse- 
quence had exposed it. A 
broad ditch, overgrown with 
weeds, indicated the remains 
of what once had been a 
moat; and huge rough 
stones, scattered around it, 
spoke of the outworks the 
fortification had anciently 
possessed, and the stout re- 
sistance they had made in 
“the Parliament Wars” to 
the sturdy followers of Ire- 


ton and Fairfax. The moon, 
that flatterer of decay, shed 
its rich and softening beauty 
over a spot which else had 
been desolate and cheerless, 
and kissed into light the 
long and unwaving herbage 
which rose at intervals from 
the ruins, like the false para- 
sites of fallen greatness. 
But for Falkland the scene 
had no interest or charm, 
and he turned with a care- 
less and unheeding eye to 
his customary apartment. 
It was the only one in the 
house furnished with luxury, 
or even comfort. Large 
book-cases inlaid with curi- 
ous carvings in ivory; busts 
of the few public characters 
the world had ever produced 
worthy, in Falkland’s esti- 
mation, of the homage of pos- 
terity ; elaborately wrought 
hangings from Flemish 
looms; and French fauteuils 
and sofas of rich damask, 
and massy gilding, (relics of 
the magnificent day of Louis 
Quatorze) — bespoke a cost- 
liness of design suited rather 
to Falkland’s wealth than to 
the ordinary simplt-city of 
his tastes. 

A large writing-table was 
overspread with books in 
various languages, and upon 
the most opposite subjects. 
Letters and papers were 
scattered amongst them ; 
Falkland turned carelessly 
over the latter. One of the 
epistolary communications 
was from Lord — - — the 


42 


FALKLAND. 


. He smiled, bitterly, 

as he read the exaggerated 
compliments it contained and 
saw to the bottom of the 
shallow artifice they were 
meant to conceal. He tossed 
the letter from him, and 
opened the scattered vo- 
lumes one after another with 
that languid and sated feel- 
ing common to all men who 
have read deeply enough to 
feel how much they have 
learned, and how little they 
know. “We pass our 
lives,” thought he, “ in sow- 
ing what we are never to 
reap ! We endeavor to 
erect a tower, which shall 
reach the heavens, in order 
to escape one curse ; and lo ! 
we are smitten by another ! 
We would soar from a com- 
mon evil, and from that mo- 
ment we are divided by a 
separate language from our 
race ! Learning, science, 
philosophy, the world of 
men and of imagination I 
ransacked, — and for what? 
I centred my happiness in 
wisdom. I looked upon the 
aims of others with a scorn- 
ful and loathing eye. I held 
commune with those who 
have gone before me ; I 
dwelt among the monuments 
of their minds, and made 
their records familiar to me 
as friends : I penetrated the 
womb of nature, and went 
with the secret elements to 
their home : I arranged the 
stars before me, and learned 
the method and the mystery 


of their courses : I asked the 
tempest its bourn, and ques- 
tioned the winds of their 
path. This w^as not suffi- 
cient to satisfy my thirst for 
knowdedge, and I searched 
in this lower world for new 
sources to content it. Un- 
seen and unsuspected. I 
saw and agitated the springs 
of the automaton that w'e 
call ‘ the Mind.’ I found a 
clew for the labyrinth of 
human motives, and I sur- 
veyed the hearts of those 
around me as through a 
glass. Vanity of vanities! 
What have I acquired ? I 
have separated myself from 
my kind, but not from those 
worst enemies, my passions ! 
I have made a solitude of 
my soul, but I have not 
mocked it wdth the appella- 
tion of Peace.* In flying 
the herd, I have not escap- 
ed from myself ; like the 
wounded deer, the barb w-^as 
within me, and that I could 
not fly!” With these 
thoughts he turned from his 
reverie, and once more en- 
deavoured to charm his own 
reflections by those which 
ought to speak to us of quiet, 
for they are graven on the 
pages of the dead ; but his 
attempts were as idle as be- 
fore. His thoughts were 
still wandering and confus- 
ed, and could neither be 

* ‘‘Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appel- 
lant/^ — Tacitus. 

“ They make a solitude, and call it 
Peace. — Byron. 


FALKLAND. 


43 


quieted nor collected: he read, 
but he scarcely distinguish- 
ed one page from another : 
he wrote — the ideas refused 
to flow at his call ; and the 
only efFert at connecting his 
feelings which even partially 
succeeded, was in the verses 
which I am about to place 
before the reader. It is a 
common property of poetry, 
however imperfectly the gift 
be possessed, to speak to the 
hearts of others in proportion 
as the sentiments it would 
express are felt in our own ; 
and I subjoin the lines which 
bear the date of that evening, 
in the hope that, more than 
many pages, they will show 
the morbid yet original cha- 
racter of the writer, and the 
particular sources of feeling 
from which they took the 
bitterness that pervades 
them : — 


KNOWLEDGE., , 

« ' 

Ergo hominHm genus incassum frustraque laborat 

Semper* et in curis consumit inanibus sevum. 

Lucebt. 

^Tis midnight ! Round the lamp which 
o^er 

My chamber sheds its lonely beam, 

Is widely spread the varied lore 
Which feeds in youth our feverish 
dream — 

The dream — the thirst — the wild de- 
sire, 

Delirious yet divine — to know ; 

Around to roam — above aspire — 

And drink the breath of Heaven 
below! 


From Ocean — Earth — the Stars — the 
Sky 

To lift mysterious Nature^s pall; 
And bare before the kindling eye 
In Man the darkest mist of all ! 

Alas ! what boots the midnight oil ? 

The madness of the struggling mind? 
Oh, vague the hope, and vain the toil, 
Which only leave us doubly blind ! 

What learn we from the Past? — ^the 
same 

Dull course of glory, guilt, and 
gloom : 

I ask'd the Future, and there came 
No voice from its unfathom^d womb* 

The Sun was silent, and the Wave 
The Air but answer'd with its 
breath ; 

But Earth was kind ; and from the 
grave 

Arose the eternal answer — Death ! 

And this was all! We need no sage 
To teach us Nature's only truth ! 

0 fools 1 o'er Wisdom's idle page 
To waste the hours of golden youth I 

In Science wildly do we seek 

What only withering years should 
bring — 

The languid pulse — the feverish 
cheek — 

The spirits drooping on their wing! 

To think — is but to learn to groan — 
To scorn what all beside adore— 

To feel amid the world alone, 

An alien on a desert shore 

To lose the only ties which seem 
To idler gaze in mercy given ! — 

To find love, faith, and hope, a dream. 
And turn to dark despair from 
heaven ! 

* ^ * 


44 


FALKLAND. 


I pass on to a wilder pe- 
riod of my history. The 
passion, as yet only revealed 
by the eye, w'as now to be 
recorded by the lip ; and 
the scene, w’^hich witnessed 
the first confession of the 
lovers, was w-^orthy of the last 
conclusion of their loves ! 

E was about twelve 

miles from a celebrated cliff 
on the sea-shore, and Lady 
Margaret had long proposed 
an excursion to a spot, cu- 
rious alike for its natural 
scenery and the legends at- 
tached to it. A day was at 
length fixed for accomplish- 
ing this plan. Falkland was 
of the party. In searching 
for something in the pockets 
of the carriage, his hand 
met Emily’s, and involun- 
tarily pressed it. She with- 
drew it hastily, but he felt 
it tremble. He did not dare 
to look up : that single con- 
tact had given him a new 
life : intoxicated with the 
most delicious sensations, he 
leaned back in silence. A 
fever had entered his veins 
— the thrill of the touch had 
gone like fire into his sys- 
tem — all his frame seemed 
one nerve. 

Lady Margaret talked of 
the weather and the pros- 
pect, wondered how far they 
had got, and animadverted 
on the roads, till at last, like 
a child, she talked herself to 
rest. Mrs. Dalton read 
"Guy Mannering” but 
neither Emily nor her lover 


had any occupation or 
thought in common with 
their companions; silent and 
absorbed, they were only 
alive to the vivid existence 
of the present. Constantly 
engaged as we are in look- 
ing behind us or before, if 
there be one hour in which 
we feel only the time being 
— in which we feel sensibly 
that w'e live, and that those 
moments of the present are 
full of the enjoyment, the 
rapture of existence — it is 
when we are with the one 
person whose life and spirits 
have become the great part 
and principle of our own. 
They reached their destina- 
tion — ^a small inn close by 
the shore. They rested 
there a short time, and then 
strolled along the sands to- 
wards the cliff. Since 
Falkland had known Emily, 
her character was much 
altered. Six weeks before 
the time I write of, and in 
playfulness and lightness of 
spirits she was almost a 
child : now those indications 
of an unawakened heart had 
mellowed into a tenderness 
full of that melancholy so 
touching and holy, even 
amid the voluptuous softness 
which it breathes and in- 
spires. But this day, whe- 
ther from that coquetry so 
common to all women, or 
from some cause more natu- 
ral to her, she seemed gayer 
than Falkland ever remem- 
bered to have seen her. 


FALKLAND. 


45 


She ran over the sands, 
picking up shells, and 
tempting the waves with 
her small and fairy feet, not 
daring to look at him, and 
yet speaking to him at times 
with a quick tone of levity 
which hurt and offended 
him, even though he knew 
the depth of those feelings 
she could not disguise either 
from him or from herself 
By degrees his answers and 
remarks grew cold and sar- 
castic. Emily affected 
pique ; and when it w'as dis- 
covered that the cliff was 
still nearly two miles off, she 
refused to proceed any far- 
ther. Lady Margaret talked 
her at last into consent, and 
they walked on as sullenly as 
an English party of pleasure 
possibly could do, till they 
were within three quarters 
©f a mile of the place, when 
Emily declared she was so 
tired that she really could 
not go on. Falkland looked 
at her, perhaps, with no very 
amiable expression of coun- 
tenance, when he perceived 
that she seemed really pale 
and fatigued : and when she 
caught his eyes, tears rushed 
into her own. 

“ Indeed, indeed, Mr. 
Falkland,” said she, eagerly, 
“this is not affectation. I 
am very tired ; but rather 
than prevent your amuse- 
ment, I will endeavour to go 
on.” “ Nonsen.se, child,” 
said Lady Margaret, “you 
do seem tired. Mrs. Dalton 


and Falkland shall go to the 
rock, and I’ll stay here with 
you.” This proposition, 
however. Lady Emily (who 
knew Lady Margaret’s wish 
to see the rock) would not 
hear of; she insisted upon 
staying by herself -“No- 
body will run away with 
me; and I can very easy 
amuse myself with picking 
up shells till you come 
back.” After a long remon- 
strance, which produced no 
effect, this plan was at last 
acceded to. With great re- 
luctance Falkland set off 
with his two companions ; 
but after the first step, he 
turned to look back. He 
caught her eye, and felt 
from that moment that their 
reconciliation was sealed. 
They arrived, at last, at the 
cliff. Its height, its excava- 
tions, the romantic interest 
which the traditions respects 
ing it had inspired, fully re- 
paid the two women for the 
fatigue of their walk. As 
for Falkland, he was uncon- 
scious of every thing around 
him ; he w’as full of “sweet 
and bitter thoughts.” In 
vain the man whom they 
found loitering there, in or- 
der to serve as a guide, kept 
dinning in his ear, stories of 
the marvellous, and exclama- 
tions of the sublime. The 
first words which aroused 
him were these — “ It’s lucky, 
please your Honour, that 
you have just saved the tide. 
It is but last week that three 


46 


FALKLAND. 


poor people were drowned 
in attempting to come here; 
as it is, you wdll have to go 
home round the cliff.” 
Falkland started : he felt 
his heart stand still. “ Good 
God !” cried Lady Marga- 
ret, “ what will become of 
Emily?” 

They w’-ere at that instant 
in one of the caverns, where 
they had already been loi- 
tering too long. Falkland 
rushed out to the sands. 
The tide was hurrying in 
with a deep sound, which 
came on his soul like a 
knell. He looked back to- 
wards the way they had 
come : not one bunded yards 
distant, and the waters had 
already covered the path ! 
An eternity would scarcely 
atone for the horror of that 
moment! One great cha- 
racteristic of Falkland was, 
his presence of mind. He 
turned to the man who stood 
beside him — he gave him a 
cool and exact description 
of the spot where he had 
left Emily. He told him to 
repair with all possible speed 
to his home — ^to launch his 
boat — to row it to the place 
he had described. “Be 
quick,” he added, “and you 
must be in time : if you are, 
you shall never know pov- 
erty again.” The next mo- 
ment he was already several 
yards from the spot. He 
run, or rather flew, till he 
w'as stopped by the waters. 
He rushed in ; they were 


over a hollow between two 
rocks — they were already up 
to his chest. “ There is yet 
hope,” thought he, when he 
had passed the spot, and saw 
the smooth sand before him. 
For some minutes he was 
scarcely sensible of exis- 
tence; and then he found 
himself breathless at her 
feet. Beyond, towards T 

, (the small inn I spoke 

of,) the waves had already 
reached the foot of the rocks, 
and precluded all hope of 
return. Their only chance 
was the possibility that the 
waters had not yet render- 
ed impassable the hollow 
through which Falkland 
had just waded. He scarce- 
ly spoke ; at least, he was 
totally unconscious of what 
he said. He hurried her on 
breathless and trembling, 
with the sound of the boom- 
ing waters ringing in his 
ear, and their billows advan- 
cing to his very feet. They 
arrived at the hollow; a 
single glance sufficed to 
show him that their 
solitary hope was past I 
The waters, before up to 
his chest, had swelled con- 
siderably ; he could not 
swim. He saw in that in- 
stant that they were girt 
wdth a hastening and terri- 
ble death. Can it be be- 
lieved that with that cer- 
tainty ceased his fear ? He 
looked in the pale but calm 
countenance of her who 
clung to him, and a strange 


FALKLAND. 


47 


tranquillity, even mingled 
with joy, possessed him. 
Her breath was on his cheek 
— her form was reclining on 
his own — his hand clasped 
hers ; if they were to die, it 
was thus. What could life 
afford to him more dear ? 

“ It is in this moment,” said 
he, and he knelt as he spoke, 

“ that I dare tell you what 
otherwise my lips never 
should have revealed. I 
love — I adore you ! Turn 
not aw'ay from me thus. In 
life our persons were sever- 
ed ; if our hearts are united 
in death, then death will be 
sweet.” She turned — her 
cheeTc was no longer pale! 
He rose — he clasped her to 
his bosom : his lips pressed 
hers. Oh ! that long, deep, 
burning pressure ! — youth, 
love, life, soul, all concen- 
trated in that one kiss ! Y et 
the same cause which occa- 
sioned the avowal, hallowed 
also the madness of his 
heart. What had the pas- 
sion, declared only at the 
appipach of death, with the. 
more earthly desires of life? 
They looked to heaven — it 
was calm and unclouded : 
the evening lay there in its 
balm and perfume, and the 
air was less agitated than^ 
their sighs. They turned 
towards the beautiful sea 
which was to be their 
grave : the wild birds flew 
over it exultingly ; the far 


vessels seemed “ rejoicing to 
run their course.” All was 
full of the breath, the glory, 
the life of nature; and in 
how many minutes was all 
to be as nothing ! Their 
existence would resemble 
the ships that have gone 
down at sea in the very 
smile of the element that 
destroyed them. They look- 
ed into each other’s eyes, 
and they drew still nearer 
together. Their hearts, in 
safety apart, mingled in 
peril and became one. Mi- 
nutes rolled on, and the 
great waves came dashing 
round them. They stood 
on the loftiest eminence 
they could reach. The 
spray broke over their feet : 
the billows rose — rose — 
they were speechless. He 
thought he heard her heart 
beat, but her lip trembled 
not. A speck — a boat ! 
“ Look up, Emily ! look up ! 
See how it cuts the waters. 
Nearer — nearer ! but a little 
longer, and we are safe. It 
is but a few yards off — it 
approaches — it topches the 
rock !” Ah ! what to them 
henceforth was the value of 
life, when the moment of 
discovering its charm be- 
came also the date of its 
misfortunes, and when the 
death they had escaped was 
the only method of cement- 
ing their union without con- 
summating their guilt ? 


48 


FALKLAND. 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq., 
to the Mon. Frederick Monk- 
ton. 

I WILL write to you at 
length to-morrow. Events 
have occurred to alter, per- 
haps, the whole complexion 
of the future. I am now go- 
ing to Emily to propose to 
her to fly. We are not ks 
gens du monde, who are 
ruined by the loss of public 
opinion. She has felt that 
I can be to her far more than 
the world ; and as for me, 
what would I not forfeit for 
one touch of her hand ? 


Extracts from the Journal of 
Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Friday . — Since I wrote 
yesterday in these pages the 
narrative of our escape, I 
have done nothing but think 
over those moments, too dan- 
gerous because too dear ; 
but at last I have steeled my 
heart — I have yielded to my 
own weakness too long — I 
shudder at the abyss from 
which I have escaped. I 
can yet fly. He will come 
here to-day — he shall receive 
my farewell. 

Saturday morning, four 
o'clock . — 1 have sat in this 
room alone since eleven 
o’clock. I cannot give vent 
to my feelings; they seem 
as if crushed by some load 


from which it is impossible 
to rise. “ He is gone, and 
forever 1" I sit repeating 
those words to myself, 
scarcely conscious of their 
meaning. Alas ! when to- 
morrow comes, and the next 
day, and the next, and yet I 
see him not, I shall aw'aken, 
indeed, to all the agony of 
my loss ! He came here — 
he saw me alone — he im- 
plored me to fly. I did not 
dare to meet his eyes ; I 
hardened my heart against 
his voice. I knew the part 
I was to take — I have adop- 
ted it ; but what struggles, 
what misery, has it not oc- 
casioned me ! Who could 
have thought it had been so 
hard to be virtuous ! , His 
eloquence drove me from one 
defence to another, and then 
I had none but his mercy. 
I opened my heart — I show- 
ed him its weakness — 1 im- 
plored his forbearance. My 
tears, my anguish, convinced 
him of my sinceri^^ We 
have parted in biterness, 
but, thank Heaven, not in 
guilt ! He has entreated 
permission to write to me. 
How could I refuse him? 
Yet I may not — cannot — 
write to him again ! How 
could I, indeed, suffer my 
heart to pour forth its feel- 
ings in reply? for would 
there be one w'ord of regret, 
or one term of endearment, 
which my inmost soul would 
not echo ? 

Sunday. — Yes, that day, 


FALKLAND. 


49 


but I must not think of this ; 
my very religion I dare not 
indulge. Oh God ! how 
wretched I am ! His visit 
was always the great sera in 
the day ; it employed all my 
hopes till he came, and all my 
memory when he was gone. 
I sit now and look at the 
place he used to fill, till I 
feel the tears rolling silently 
down my cheek ; they come 
without an effort — they de- 
part without relief. 

Monday . — Henry asked 

me where Mr. Falkland was 
one ; I stooped down to 
ide my confusion. When 
shall I hear from him ? To- 
morrow ? Oh that it were 
come ! I have placed the 
clock before me, and I actu- 
ally count the minutes. He 
left a book here; it is a 
volume of “ Melmoth.” I 
have read over every word of 
it, and whenever I have come 
to a pencil-mark by him, I 
have paused to dream over 
that varying and eloquent 
countenance, the soft low 
tone of that tender voice, till 
the book has fallen from 
my hands, and I have started 
to find the utterness of my 
desolation ! 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq., 
to Lady Emily Mandeville. 

-Hotel, London. 

For the first time in my 
life I write to you ! How 


my hand trembles — how my 
cheek flushes! a thousand 
thousand thoughts rush 
upon me, and almost suffo- 
cate me with the variety and 
confusion of the emotions 
they awaken ! I am agitated 
alike with the rapture of 
writing to you, and with the 
impossibility of expressing 
the feelings which I cannot 
distinctly unravel even to 
myself You love me, 
Emily, and yet I have fled 
from you, and at your com- 
mand ; but the thought that, 
though absent, I am not for- 
gotten, supports me through 
all. 

It was with a feverish sense 
of weariness and pain that 1 
found myself entering this 
vast reservoir of human 
vices. I became at once 
sensible of the sterility of 
that polluted soil so incapa- 
ble of nurturing affection, 
and I clasped your image 
the closer to my heart. It 
is you, who, when I was 
most weary of existence, 
gifted me with a new life. 
You breathed into me a part 
of your own spirit ; my soul 
feels that influence, and be- 
comes more sacred. I have 
shut myself from the idlers 
who would molest me ; I 
have built a temple in my 
heart: 1 have set within it a 
divinity; and the vanities 
of the world shall not pro- 
fane the spot which has been 
consecrated to you. Our 
parting, Emily,— ^o you re- 


60 


FALKLAND. 


call it? Your hand clasped 
in mine ; your cheek rest- 
ing, though but for an in- 
stant, on my bosom : and 
the tears which love called 
forth, but which virtue puri- 
fied even at their source. 
Never were hearts so near, 
yet so divided ; never was 
there an hour so tender, yet 
so unaccompanied with dan- 
ger. Passion, grief, mad- 
ness, all sank beneath your 
voice, and lay hushed like a 
deep sea within my soul ! 
“Tu abbia veduto il leone 
ammansarsi alia sola tua 
voce.”* 

I tore myself from you ; I 
hurried through the wood ; 
I stood by the lake, on whose 
banks I had so often wan- 
dered with you ; I bared my 
breast to the winds ; I bathed 
my temples with the waters. 
F ool that I was ! the fever, 
the fever was within ! But 
it is not thus, my adored 
and beautiful friend, that I 
should console and support 
you. Even as I write, pas- 
sion melts into tenderness, 
and pours itself in softness, 
over your remembrance. 
The virtue so gentle, yet so 
strong ; the feelings so kind, 
yet so holy ; the tears w'hich 
wept over the decision your 
lips proclaimed — these are 
the recollections which come 
over me like dew. Let your 
own heart, my Emily, be 
your reward; and know 


* Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. 


that your lover only forgets 
that he adores, to remember 
that he respects you ! 


From the Same to the Same. 

Park. 

I COULD not bear the tu- 
mult and noise of London. 
I sighed for solitude, that I 
might muse over your re- 
membrance undisturbed. I 
came here yesterday. It is 
the home of my childhood. 
I am surrounded on all sides 
by the scenes and images 
consecrated by the fresh re- 
collections of my unsullied 
years. They are not chang- 
ed. The seasons which come 
and depart renew in them 
the havoc which they make. 
If the December destroys, 
the April revives ; but man 
has but one spring, and the 
desolation of the heart but 
one winter ! In this very 
room have I sat and brood- 
ed over dreams and hopes 
which — but no matter — 
those dreams could never 
show me a vision to equal 
you, or those hopes hold out 
to me a blessing so precious 
as your love. 

Do you remember, or ra- 
ther can you ever forget, 
that moment in which the 
great depths of our souls 
were revealed? Ah ! not in 
the scene in which such 
vows should have been wdiis- 
pered to your ear, and your 


FALKLAND. 


51 


tenderness have blushed its 
reply. The passion conceal- 
ed in darkness was revealed 
in danger ; and the love, 
which in life was forbidden, 
was our comfort amidst the 
terrors of death ! And that 
long and holy kiss, the first, 
the only moment in which 
our lips shared the union 
of our souls! — do not tell 
me that it is wTong to recall 
it I — do not tell me that I 
sin, when I own to you the 
hours I sit alone, and nurse 
the deliriurh of that volup- 
tuous remembrance. The 
feelings you have excited 
may render me wretched, 
but not guilty; for the love 
of ymi can only hallow 
the heart — -it is a fire 
which consecrates the altar 
on which it burns. I feel, 
even from the hour that I 
loved, that my soul has be- 
come more pure. I could 
not have believed that I was 
capable of so unearthly an 
affection, or that the love of 
woman could possess that di- 
vinity of virtue which I wor- 
ship in yours. The worfd 
is no fosterer of our young 
visions of purity and pas- 
sion : embarked in its pur- 
suits, and acquainted with 
its pleasures, while the lat- 
ter sated me with what is 
evil, the former made me 
incredulous to what is pure. 
I considered your sex as a 
problem which my experi- 
ence had already solved. 
Like the French philoso- 


, phers, who lose truth by en- 
deavouring to condense it, 
and who forfeit the moraZ 
from their regard to the 
maxim., I concentrated my 
knowledge of women into 
aphorisms and antitheses ; 
and I did not dream of the 
exceptions, if I did not find 
myself deceived in the ge- 
neral conclusion. I confess 
that I erred : I renounce 
from this moment the colder 
reflections of my manhood, 
— the fruits of a bitter expe- 
rience, — the wisdom of an 
inquiring, yet agitated life. 
I return with transport to 
my earliest visions of beauty 
and love; and I dedicate 
them upon the altar of my 
soul to you, who have em- 
bodied, and concentrated 
and breathed them into life ! 


Extracts from the Journal of 

Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Monday. — This is the 
most joyless day in the 
whole week ; for it can 
bring me no letter from him. 
I rise listlessly, and read 
over again and again the 
last letter I received from him 
—useless task ! it is graven 
in my heart! I long only 
for the day to be over, be- 
cause to-morrow I may, per- 
haps, hear from him again. 
When I wake at night from 
my disturbed and broken 


62 


FALKLAND. 


sleep, I look if the morning 
is near ; not because it gives 
light and life, but because it 
may bring tidings of him. 
When his letter is brought 
to me, I keep it for minutes 
unopened — I feed my eyes 
on the hand-writing — I exa- 
mine the seal — I press it 
with my kisses, before I in- 
dulge myself in the luxury 
of reading it. I then place 
it in my bosom, and take it 
thence only to read it again 
and again, — to moisten it 
with my tears of gratitude 
and love, and, alas ! of peni- 
tence and remorse ! What 
can be the end of this affec- 
tion ? I dare neither to 
hope that it may continue, or 
that it may cease ; in either 
case I am wretched for 
ever! 

Monday night, twelve o’- 
chdc . — They observe my 
paleness; the tears which 
tremble in my eyes ; the 
listlessness and dejection of 
my manner. I think Mrs. 
Dalton guesses the cause. 
Humbled and debased in 
my own mind, I fly, Falk- 
land, for refuge to you ! 
Your affection cannot raise 
me to my former state, but 
it can reconcile — no — not re- 
concile, but support me in 
my present. This dear let- 
ter, I kiss it again — oh ! that 
to-morrow were come! 

Tuesday.— Another letter 
— so kind, so tender, so en- 
couraging ; would that I 


deserved his praises ! alas ! I 
sin even in reading them. I 
know that I ought to strug- 
gle more against my feelings 
— once I attempted it; I 
prayed to Heaven to support 
me; I put away from me 
every thing that could recall 
him to my mind— for three 
days I would not open his 
letters. I could then resist 
no longer ; and my weakness 
became the more confirmed 
from the feebleness of the 
struggle. I remember one 
day that he told us of a 
beautiful passage in one of 
the ancients, in which the 
bitterest curse against the 
wicked is, that they may see 
virtue, but not be able to olj- 
tain it ;* — that punishment 
is mine ! 

Wednesday . — My boy has 
been with me : I see him 
now from the windows gath- 
ering the field-flowers, and 
running after every butterfly 
which comes across him. 
Formerly he made all my 
delight and occupation ; now 
he is even dearer to me than 
ever ; but he no longer en- 
grosses all my thoughts. I 
turn over the leaves of this 
journal : once it noted down 
the little occurrences of the 
day ; it marks nothing now 
but the monotony of sadness. 
He is not here — he cannot 
come. What event then 
could I notice ? 


* PersiuB. 


FALKLAND. 


53 


From Eranmus Falkland, Esq. 

to Lady Emily Mandeville.*' 

Park. 

If you knew how I long, 
how I thirst for one word 
from you — one word to say 
you are well, and have not 
forgotten me ! — but I will 
not distress you. You will 
guess my feelings, and do jus- 
tice to the restraint I impose 
on them, when I make no ef- 
fort to alter your resolution 
not to write. I know that it 
is just, and I bow to my sen- 
tence ; but can you blame 
me if I am restless, and if 
I repine ? It is past twelve. 
I always write to you at 
night. It is then, my own 
love, that my imagination 
can the more readily trans- 
port me to you ; it is then 
that my spirit holds with 
you a more tender and un- 
divided commune. In the 
day the world can force 
itself upon my thoughts, 
and its trifles usurp the 
place which “ I love to keep 
for only thee and Heaven 
but in the night all things 
recall you the more vividly : 
the stillness of the gentle 
skies, — the bland ness of the 
unbroken air, — the stars, so 
holy in their loveliness, — 
all speak and breathe to me 
of you. I think your hand 
is clasped in mine; that I 
again drink the low music 

* Most of the letters from Falkland 
to Lady E. Mandeville I have thought 
expedient to suppress. 


of your voice, and imbibe 
again in the air the breath 
which has been perfumed 
by your lips. You seem t© 
stand in my lonely chamber 
in the light and stillness of 
a spirit, who has wandered 
on earth to teach us the 
love which is felt in heaven. 

I cannot,, believe me, I 
cannot endure this separa- 
tion long ; it must be more 
or less. You must be mine 
for ever, or our parting must 
be without a mitigation, 
which is rather a cruelty 
than a relief If you wdll 
not accompany me, I will 
leave this country alone. I 
must not wean myself from 
your image by degrees, but 
break from the enchantment 
at once. And w’hen, Emily, 
I am once more upon the 
world, when no tidings of 
my fate shall reach your 
ear, and all its power of 
alienation be left to the pro- 
gress of time — then, when 
you will at last have forgot- 
ten me, when your peace of 
mind will be restored, and 
having no struggles of con- 
science to undergo, you will 
have no remorse to endure ; 
— then, Emily, when we are 
indeed divided, let the scene 
which has witnessed our 
assion, the letters which 
ave recorded my vow, the 
evil we have suffered, and 
the temptation we have over- 
come ; let these, in our old 
age be remembered, and in 
declaring to heaven that we 


54 


FALKLAND. 


were innocent, add also — 
that me hoed. 

From Don Alphonso D’ Aguilar 
to Don . 

London. 

Our cause gains ground 
daily. The great, indeed 
the only ostensible object of 
my mission is nearly ful- 
filled ; but I have another 
charge and attraction which 
I am now about to explain 
to you. You know that my 
acquaintance with the Eng- 
lish language and country 
arose from my sister’s mar- 
riage with Mr. Falkland. 
After the birth of their only 
child I accompanied them 
to England : I remained 
with them for three years, 
and I still consider those 
days among the whitest in 
my restless and agitated ca- 
reer. I returned to Spain ; 
I became engaged in the 
troubles and dissensions 
which distracted my un- 
happy country. Years roll- 
ed on, how I need not men- 
tion to you. One night 
they put a letter in my 
hands : it was from my sis- 
ter ; it was written on her 
death-bed. Her husband 
had died suddenly. She 
loved him as a Spanish wo- 
man loves, and she could 
not survive his loss. Her 
letter to me spoke of her 
country and her son. 
Amidst the new ties she 


had formed in England, she 
had never forgotten the land 
of her fathers. “ I have al- 
ready,” she said, “taught 
my boy to remember that 
he has two countries; that 
the one, prosperous and 
free, may afford him his 
pleasures; that the other, 
struggling and debased, de- 
mands from him his duties. 
If, when he has attained the 
age in which you can judge 
of his character, he is re- 
spectable only from his 
rank, and valuable only 
from his wealth; if neither 
his head nor his heart will 
make him useful to our 
cause, suffer him to remain 
undisturbed in his prosper- 
ity here: but if, as I pre- 
sage, he becomes worthy of 
the blood which he bears in 
his veins, then I conjure 
you, my brother, to remind 
him that he has been sworn 
by me on my death-bed to 
the most sacred of earthly 
altars.” 

Some months since, when 
I arrived in England, before 
I ventured to find him out 
in person, I resolved to in- 
quire into his character. — 
Had he been as the young 
and rich generally are — had 
dissipation become habitual 
to him, and frivolity grown 
around him as a second 
nature, then I should have 
acquiesced in the former in- 
junction of my sister much 
more willingly than I 
now shall obey the latter. I 


55 


FALKLAND. 


find that he is perfectly ac- 
quainted with our language, 
that he has placed a large 
sum in our funds, and that 
from the general liberality of 
his sentiments he is as like- 
ly to espouse, as (in that 
case) he would be certain, 
from his high reputation for 
talent, to serve, our cause. I 
am, therefore, upon the eve 
of seeking him out. I un- 
derstand that he is living in 
perfect retirement, in the 
county of , in the im- 

mediate neighbourhood of 
Mr. Mandeville, an English- 
man of considerable fortune, 
and warmly attached to our 
cause. 

Mr. Mandeville has invit- 
ed me to accompany him 
down to this estate for some 
days, and I am too anxious to 
see my nephew not to ac- 
cept eagerly of the invitation. 
If I can persuade Falkland 
to aid us, it will be by the 
influence of his name, his 
talents, and his wealth. It 
is not of him that we can ask 
the stern and laborious devo- 
tion to which we have conse- 
crated ourselves. The perfidy 
of friends, the vigilance of 
foes, the rashness of the bold, 
the cowardice of the waver- 
ing ; strife in the closet, 
treachery in the senate, 
death in the field ; these con- 
stitute the fate we have 
pledged ourselves to bear. — 
Little pan any, who do not 
endure it, imagine of the life 
to which those who share 


the contests of an agitated 
and distracted country are 
■ doomed ; but if they know 
not our griefs, neither can 
they dream of our consola- 
tion. We move, like the de- 
lineation of Faith, over a 
barren and desert soil : the 
rock, and the thorn, and the 
stings of the adder are round 
our feet; but we clasp a 
crucifix to our hearts for our 
comfort, and we fix our eyes 
upon the heavens for our 
hope ! 


Extracts from the Journal of 

Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Wednesday . — His letters 
have taken a different tone : 
instead of soothing, they 
add to .my distress; but 
I deserve all — all that can 
be inflicted upon me. I have 
had a letter from Mr. Man- 
deville. He is coming down 
here for a few days, and in- 
tends bringing some friends 
with him : he mentions par- 
ticularly a Spaniard — the 
uncle of Mr. Falkland, whom 
he asks me if I have seen . — 
The Spaniard is particularly 
anxious to meet his nephew 
— he does not then know that 
Falkland is gone. It will 
be some relief to see Mr. Man- 
deville alone ; -but even then 
how shall I meet him ? What 
shall I say when he observes 
my paleness and alteration ? 
I feel bowed to the very 
dust. 


66 


FALKLAND. 


Thursday evening. — Mr. 
Mandeville has arrived : 
fortunately, it was late in the 
evening before he came, and 
the darkness prevented his 
observing my confusion and 
alteration. He was kinder 
than usual. Oh ! how bit- 
terly my heart avenged him ! 
He brought with him the 
Spaniard, Don Alphonso 
D’ Aguilar ; I think there is 
a faint family likeness be- 
tween him and Falkland. 
Mr. Mandeville brought also 
a letter from Julia. She 
will be here the day after 
to-morrow. The letter is 
short, but kind; she does 
not allude to him : it is some 
days since I heard from 
him. 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq., 
to the Hon. Frederick Monkton. 

I HAVE resolved. Monk- 
ton, to go to her again ! I am 
sure that it will be better 
for both of us to meet once 
more; perhaps, to unite for 
ever ! None who have once 
loved me can easily forget me. 
I do not say this from vanity, 
because I owe it not to my 
being superior to, but differ- 
ent from others. I am sure 


that the remorse and afflic- 
tion she feels now are far 
greater than she would ex- 
perience, even were she 
more guilty, and with me. 
Then, at least, she would 
have some one to soothe and 
sympathize in whatever she 
might endure. To one so 
pure as Emily, the full 
crime is already incurred. 
It is not the innocent who 
insist upon that nice line 
of morality between the 
thought and the action ; 
such distinctions require re- 
flection, experience, delibe- 
ration, prudence of head, or 
coldness of heart ; these are 
the traits not of the guileless, 
but the worldly. It is the 
affections, not the person, of 
a virtuous woman, which it 
is difficult to obtain : that 
difficulty is the safeguard to 
her chastity : that difficulty 
I have, in this instance, 
overcome. I have endea- 
voured to live without 
Emily, but in vain. Every 
moment of absence only 
taught me the impossibility. 
In twenty-four hours I shall 
see her again. I feel my 
pulse rise into fever at the 
very thought. 

Farewell, Monkton. My 
next letter, I hope, will re- 
cord my triumph. 


FALKLAND 


BOOK III. 


Extracts from the Journal of 
Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Friday. — J itlia is here, 
and so kind ! She has not 
mentioned his name, but she 
sighed so deeply when she 
saw my pale and sunken 
countenance, that I threw 
myself into her arms and 
cried like a child. We had 
no need of other explana- 
tion : those tears spoke at 
once my confession and my 
repentance. No letter from 
him for several days ! Surely 
he is not ill ! how miserable 
that thought makes me ! 

Saturday. — A note has 
just been brought me from 
him. He is come back — 
here! Good Heavens ! how 
very imprudent! I am so 
agitated that I can write no 
more. 

Sunday. — I have seen 
him ! Let me repeat that 
sentence — I have seen him. 
Oh that moment! did it not 
atone for all that I have suf- 
fered ? I dare not write 
every thing he said, but he 
wished me to fly with him 
— him — what happiness, yet 
what guilt, in the very 


thought! Oh! this foolish 
heart — would that it might 
break ! I feel too well the 
sophistry of his arguments, 
and yet I cannot resist them. 
He seems to have thrown a 
spell over me, which pre- 
cludes even the effort to 
escape. 

Monday. — Mr. Mande- 

ville has asked several people 
in the country to dine here 
to-morrow, and there is to be 
a ball in the evening. Falk- 
land is of course invitedi 
We shall meet then, and 
how ? I have been so little 
accustomed to disguise my 
feelings that I quite tremble 
to meet him with so many 
witnesses around. Mr. 
Mandeville has been so 
harsh to me to-day ; if F alk- 
land ever looked at me so, 
or ever said one such word, 
my heart would indeed 
break. What is it Alfieri 
says about the two demons 
to whom he is for ever a 
prey ? “ La mente e il cor in 

perpetua litef Alas ! at 
times I start from my reve- 
ries with such a keen sense 
of agony and shame ! How, * 
how am I fallen ! 


57 


58 


FALKLAND. 


Tuesday .— is to come 
here to-day, and I shall see 
him ! 

- Wednesday morning. — 
The night is over, thank 
Heaven ! Falkland came late 
to dinner : every one else 
was assembled. How grace- 
fully he entered ! how supe- 
rior he seemed to all the 
crowd that stood around 
him ! He appeared as if 
he were resolved to exert 
powers w'hich he had dis- 
dained before. He entered 
into the conversation, not 
only with such brilliancy, 
but with such a blandness 
and courtesy of manner ! 
There was no scorn on his 
lip, no haughtiness on his 
forehead — nothing which 
showed him for a moment 
conscious of his immeasura- 
ble superiority over every 
one present. After dinner, 
as we retired, I caught his 
eyes. What volumes they 
told ! — and then I had to 
listen to his praises, and say 
nothing. I felt angry even 
in my pleasure. Who but 
I had a right to speak of 
him so well ? 

The ball came on : I felt 
languid and dispirited. Falk- 
land did not dance. He sat 
himself by me — he urged 

me to O God ! 0 God ! 

would that I were dead ! 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq. 

to Lady Emily Mandeville. 

How are you this morn- 
ing, my adored friend? You 
seemed pale and ill when 
we parted last night, and I 
shall be so unhappy till I 
hear something of you. Oh 
Emily, when you listened 
to me with those tearful and 
downcast looks ; when I saw 
your bosom heave at every 
word which 1 whispered in 
your ear; when, as I acci- 
dentally touched your hand, 
I felt it tremble beneath my 
own; oh! was there nothing 
in those moments at your 
heart which pleaded for me 
more eloquently than words? 
Pure and holy as you are, 
you know not, it is true, the 
feelings which burn and 
madden in me. When you 
are beside me, your hand, 
if it trenibles, is not on fire : 
your voice, if it is more sub- 
dued, does not falter with 
the emotions it dares not 
express : your heart is not, 
like mine, devoured by a 
parching and wasting flame : 
your sleep is not turned 
by restless and turbulent 
dreams from the healthful 
renewal, into the very con- 
sumer, of life. No, Emily! 
God forbid that you should 
feel the guilt, the agony 
w’hich preys upon me : but, 
at least, in the fond and gen- 
tle tenderness of your heart, 
there must be a voice you 
1 find it difficult to silence. 


FALKLAND. 


59 


Amidst all the fictitious ties 
and fascinations of art, you 
cannot dismiss from your 
bosom the unconquerable 
impulses of nature. What 
is it you fear ? — you will an- 
swer, disgrace ! But can 
you feel it, Emily, when 
you share it with me ? Be- 
lieve me that the love which 
is nursed through shame 
and sorrow is of a deeper 
and holier nature than that 
which is reared in pride, 
and fostered in joy. But, 
if not shame, it is guilt, per- 
haps, which you dread? Are 
^u then so innocent now ? 
The adultery of the heart is 
no less a crime than that of 
the deed ; and — yet I will 
not deceive you — it is guilt 
to which I tempt you ! — it 
is a fall from the proud emi- 
nence you hold now. I 
grant this, and I offer you 
nothing in recompense but 
my love. If you loved like 
me, you would feel that it 
was something of pride — of 
triumph — to dare all things, 
even crime, for the one to 
whom all things are as 
nought ! As for me, I know 
that if a voice from Heaven 
told me to desert you, I would 
only clasp you the closer to 
my heart ! 

I tell you, my own love, 
that when your hand is in 
mine, when your head rests 
upon my bosom, when those 
soft and thrilling eyes shall 
be fixed upon my own, when 
every sigh shall be mingled 


with my breath, and every 
tear be kissed away at the 
very instant it rises from its 
source — I tell you that then, 
you shall only feel that every 
pang of the past, and every 
fear for the future, shall be 
but a new link to bind us 
the firmer to each other. 
Emily, my life, my love, 
you cannot, if you would, 
desert me. Who can sepa- 
rate the waters which are 
once united, or divide the 
hearts which have met and 
mingled into one ? 

Since they had once more 
met, it will be perceived 
that Falkland had adopted 
a new tone in expressing 
his passion to Emily. In 
the book of guilt another 
page, branded in a deeper 
and more burning character, 
had been turned. He lost 
no opportunity of summon- 
ing the earthlier emotions 
to the support of his cause. 
He wooed her fancy with 
the golden language of poet- 
ry, and strove to arouse the 
latent feelings of her sex by 
the soft magic of his voice, 
and the passionate meaning 
it conveyed. But at times 
there came over him a deep 
and keen sentiment of re- 
morse ; and even, as his ex- 
perienced and practised eye 
saw the moment of his tri- 
umph approach, he felt that 
the success he was hazard- 
ing his own soul and hers 
to obtain, might bring him 


65 


FALKLAND. 


a momentary transport, but 
not a permanent happiness. 
There is always this diffe- 
rence in the love of women 
and of men; that in the 
former, when once admitted, 
it engrosses all the sources 
of thought, and excludes 
every object but itself; but 
in the latter, it is shared 
with all the former reflec- 
tions and feelings which the 
past yet bequeathes us, and 
can neither (however pow- 
erful be its nature (consti- 
tute the whole of our happi- 
ness or woe. The love of 
man in his maturer years is 
not indeed so much a new 
emotion, as a revival and 
concentration of all his de- 
parted affections to others; 
and the deep and intense 
nature of Falkland’s pas.sion 
for Emily was linked with 
the recollections of whatever 
he had formerly cherished 
as tender or dear : it touch- 
ed — it awoke a long chain 
of young and enthusiastic 
feelings, . which arose, per- 
haps, the fresher from their 
slumber. Who, when he 
turns to recall his first and 
fondest associations; when 
he throws off, one by one, 
the layers of earth and stone 
which have grown and hard- 
ened over the records of the 
past ; who has not been sur- 
prised to discover how fresh 
and unimpaired those buried 
treasures rise again upon his 
heart? They have been lain 


up in the storehouse of 
Time ; they have not pe- 
rished; their very conceal- 
ment has preserved them ! 
We remove the lava, and the 
world of a gone day is before 
us! 

The evening of the day 
on which Falkland had writ- 
ten the above letter was rude 
and stormy. The various 
streams with which the 
country abounded were 
swellled by late rains into 
an unwonted rapidity and 
breadth ; and their voices 
blended with the rushing 
sound of the winds, and the 
distant roll of the thunder, 
which began at last sullenly 
to subside. The whole of 

the scene around L was 

of that savage yet sublime 
character, whicli suited well 
with the wrath of the aroused 
elements. Dark woods, large 
tracts of unenclosed heath, 
abrupt variations of hill and 
vale, and a dim and broken 
outline beyond of uninter- 
rupted mountains, formed 
the great features of that ro- 
mantic country. 

It was filled with the re- 
collections of his youth, and 
of the wild delight which he 
took then in the convulsions 
and varieties of nature, that 
Falkland roamed abroad that 
evening. The dim shadows 
of years, crowded with con- 
cealed events and corroding 
reflections, all gathered 
around his mind, and the 


FALKLAND. 


61 


gloom and tempest of the 
night came over him like 
the sympathy of a friend. 

He passed a group of ter- 
rified peasants; they were 
cowering under a tree. The 
oldest hid his head and 
shuddered ; but the young- 
est looked steadily at the 
lightning which played at 
fitful intervals over the 
mountain stream that rushed 
rapidly by their feet. Falk- 
land stood beside them un- 
noticed and silent, with 
folded arms and a scornful 
lip. To him, nature, heaven, 
earth, had nothing for fear, 
and every thing for reflec- 
tion. In youth, thought he, 
(as he contrasted the fear 
felt at one period of life with 
the indifference at another) 
there are so many objects to 
divide and distract life, that 
we are scarcely sensible of 
the collected conviction that 
we live. We lose the sense 
of what is, by thinking ra- 
ther of what is to be. But 
the old, who have no future 
to expect, are more vividly 
alive to the present, and they 
feel death more, because 
they have a more settled and 
perfect impression of' exist- 
ence. 

He left the group, and 
went on alone by the margin 
of the winding and swelling 
stream. “ It is (said a cer- 
tain philosopher) in the con- 
flicts of Nature that man 
most feels his littleness.” 
Like all general maxims, 


this is only partially true. 
The mind, which takes its 
first ideas from perception, 
must take also its tone from 
the character of the objects 
perceived. In mingling our 
spirits with the great ele- 
ments, we partake of their 
sublimity ; we awaken 
thought from the secret 
depths where it had lain 
concealed ; our feelings are 
too excited to remain riveted 
to ourselves ; they blend 
with . the mighty powers 
which are abroad; and, as 
in the agitations of men, the 
individual arouses from him- 
self to become a part of the 
crowd, so in the convulsions 
of nature we are equally 
awakened from the littleness 
of self, to be lost in the gran- 
deur of the conflict by which 
we are surrounded. 

Falkland still continued 
to track the stream : it 
wound its way through 
Mandeville’s grounds, and 
broadened at last into the 
lake which was so conse- 
crated to his recollections. 
He paused at that spot for 
some moments, looking care- 
lessly over the wide expanse 
of waters, now dark as night, 
and now flashing into one 
mighty plane of fire beneath 
the coruscatfons of the light- 
ning. The clouds swept on 
in massy columns, dark and 
aspiring — veiling while they 
rolled up to, the great hea- 
vens, like the shadows of 
human doubt. Oh ! weak. 


62 


FALKLAND. 


weak was that dogma of the 
philosopher ! There is a 
pride in the storm which, 
according to his doctrine, 
wonld debase us ; a stirring 
music in its roar ; even a 
savage joy in its destruction : 
for we can exult in a defi- 
ance of its power, even 
while we share in its tri- 
umphs, a consciousness of a 
superior spirit within us to 
that which is around. We 
can mock at the fury of the 
elements, for they are less 
terrible than the passions of 
the heart; at the devasta- 
tions of the awful skies, for 
they are less desolating than 
the wrath of man ; at the 
convulsions of that surround- 
ing nature which has no 
peril, no terror to the soul, 
which is more indestructible 
and eternal than itself 
F alkland turned towards 
the house which contained 
his world ; and as the light- 
ning revealed at intervals 
the white columns of the 
porch, and wrapt in sheets 
of fire, like a spectral throng, 
the tall and waving trees by 
which it was encircled, and 
then as suddenly ceased, and 
“the jaws of darkness” de- 
voured up the scene ; he 
compared, with that bitter 
alchymy of feeling which 
resolves all into one crucible 
of thought, those alternations 
of light and shadow to the 
history of his own guilty 
love — that passion whose 
birth was of the womb of 


Night; shrouded in dark- 
ness, surrounded by storms, 
and receiving only from the 
angry heavens a momentary 
brilliance, more terrible than 
its customary gloom. 

As he entered the saloon, 
Lady Margaret advanced 
towards him. “ My dear 
Falkland,” said she, “how 
good it is in you to come in 
such a night! We have 
been watching the skies till 
Emily grew terrified at the 
lightning; formerly it did 
not alarm her.” And Lady 
Margaret turned, utterly 
unconscious of the reproach 
she had conveyed towards 
Emily. 

Did not Falkland’s look 
turn also to that spot ? 
Lady Emily was sitting by 
the harp w'^hich Mrs. St. 
John appeared to be most 
seriously employed in tun- 
ing ; her countenance was 
bent downwards, and burn- 
ing beneath the blushes 
called forth by the gaze 
which she felt was upon 
her. 

There was in Falkland’s 
character a peculiar dislike 
to all outward display of 
less wmrldly emotions. He 
had none of the vanity most 
men have in conquest; he 
would not have had any 
human being know that he 
was loved. He w'as right ! 
No altar should be so unseen 
and inviolable as the human 
heart 1 He saw at once and 
relieved the embarrassment 


63 


FALKLAND. 


he had caused. With the 
rernarkable fascination and 
grace of naanner so peculiar- 
ly his own, he made his ex- 
cuses to Lady Margaret for 
his disordered dress ; he 
charmed his uncle, Don Al- 
phonso, with a quotation 
from*Lopez de Vega; he in- 
quired tenderly of Mrs. Dal- 
ton touching the health of 
her Italian greyhound ; and 
then — nor till then — he ven- 
tured to approach Emily, 
and speak to her in that soft 
tone, which, like a fairy 
language, is understood only 
by the person it addresses. 
Mrs. St. John rose and left 
the harp : Falkland took her 
seat. He bent down to 
whisper Emily. His long 
hair touched her cheek : it 
was still wet with the night 
dew. She looked up as she 
felt it, and met his gaze : 
better had it been to have 
lost earth than to have 
drunk the soul’s poison from 
that eye when it tempted to 
sin. 

Mrs. St. John stood at 
some distance ; Don Al- 
phonso was speaking to her 
of his nephew, and of his 
hopes of ultimately gaining 
him to the cause of his 
mother’s country. “ See 
you not,” said Mrs. St. 
John, and her colour went 
and came, “that while he 
has such attractions to de- 
tain him, your hopes are in 
vain?” “What mean you?” 
replied the Spaniard; but 


his eye had followed the di- 
rection she had given it, 
and the question came only 
from his lips. Mrs. St. 
John drew him to a still re- 
moter corner of the room, 
and it was in the conversa- 
tion that then ensued be- 
tween them that they agreed 
to unite for the purpose of 
separating Emily from her 
lover — “I to save my 
friend,” said Mrs. St. John, 
“and you your kinsman.” 
Thus is it with human vir- 
tue : — the fair show and the 
good deed without — ^the one 
eternal motive of selfishness 
within. During the Span- 
iard’s visit at E , he had 

seen enough of Falkland to 
perceive the great conse- 
quence he might, from his 
perfect knowledge of the 
Spanish language, from his 
singular powers, and above 
all, from his command of 
wealth, be to the cause of 
that party he himself had 
adopted. His aim, there- 
fore, was now no longer 
confined to procuring Falk- 
land’s good will and aid at 
home :■ he hoped to secure 
his personal assistance in 
Spain ; and he willingly 
coincided with Mrs. St. 
John in detaching his ne- 
phew from a tie so likely to 
detain him from that service 
to which Alphonso wished 
he should be pledged. 

Mandeville hafi left E 
that morning : he sus- 
pected nothing of Emily’s 


64 


FALKLAND. 


attachment. This, on his 
part, was less confidence 
than indifference. He was 
one of those persons who 
have no existence separate 
from their own : his senses 
all turned inwards, they re- 
produced selfishness. Even 
the House of Commons was 
only an object of interest, 
because he imagined it a 
part of him, not he of it. 
He said, with the insect on 
the wheel, “ Admire our ra- 
pidity.” But did the de- 
fects of his character remove 
Lady Emily’s guilt? No! 
and this, at times, was her 
bitterest conviction. Who- 
ever turns to these pages for 
an apology for sin will be 
mistaken. They contain 
the burning records of its 
sufferings, its repentance, 
and its doom. If there be 
one crime in the history of 
woman worse than another, 
it is adultery. It is, in fact, 
the only crime to which, in 
ordinary life she is exposed. 
Man has a thousand tempta- 
tions to sin — woman has but 
one : if she cannot resist it, 
she has no claim upon our 
mercy. The heavens are 
just ! her own guilt is her 
punishment ! Should these 
pages, at this moment, meet 
the eyes of one who has be- 
come the centre of a circle 
of disgrace — the contamina- 
tor of her house — the dis- 
honourer of her children, — 
no matter what the excuse 
for her crime — no matter 


what the exchange of her 
station — in the very arms of 
her lover, in the very cinc- 
ture of the new ties which 
she has chosen, — I call 
upon her to answer me if 
the fondest moments of rap- 
ture are free from humilia- 
tion, though they have for- 
gotten remorse; and if the 
assion itself of her lover 
as not become no less the 
penalty than the recom- 
pense of her guilt? But at 
that hour of which I now 
write, there was neither in 
Emily’s heart, nor in that 
of her seducer, any recollec- 
tion of their sin. Those 
hearts were too full for 
thought — they had forgot- 
ten every thing but each 
other. Their love was their 
creation : beyond, all was 
night — chaos — nothing ! 

Lady Margaret approach- 
ed them. “You will sing 
to us, Emily, to-night? it is 
so long since we have heard 
you !” It was in vain that 
Emily tried — her voice fail- 
ed. She looked at Falkland, 
and could scarcely restrain 
her tears. She had not yet 
learned the latest art which 
sin teaches us — its conceal- 
ment ! “ I will supply Lady 
Emily’s place,” said Falk- 
land. His voice was calm, 
his brow serene : the world 
had left nothing for him to 
learn. “ Will you play the 
air,” he said to Mrs. St. John, 
“ that you gave us some 
nights ago ? I will furnish 


FALKLAND, 


65 


the words.” Mrs. St. John’s 
hand trembled as she obeyed. 

SONG. 

1 . 

Ah, let us love while yet we may : 

Our summer is decaying ; 

And woe to hearts which, in their 
gray 

December, go a-maying. 

2 . 

Ah, let us love, whfle of the fire 
Time hath not yet bereft us ; 

With years our warmer thoughts ex- 
pire, 

Till only ice is left us I 

3 . 

We ^11 fly the bleak world^s bitter 
air — 

A brighter home shall win us ; 

And if our hearts grow weary there. 

We ^11 find a world within us. 

4 . 

They preach that passion fades each 
hour, 

That nought will pall like plea- 
sure : 

My bee, if Lovers so frail a flower. 

Oh, haste to hive its treasure I 

5 . 

Wait not the hour, when all the 
mind 

Shall to the crowd be given ; 

For links, which to the miljion bind. 
Shall from the one be riven I 

6 . 

But let us love while yet we may : 

Our summer is decaying ; 

And woe to hearts which, in their 
gray 

December go a-maying. i 


The next day Emily rose 
ill and feverish. In the ab- 
sence of F alkland, her mind 
always awoke to the full 
sense of the guilt she had in- 
curred. She had been 
brought up in the strictest, 
even the most fastidious 
principles; and her nature 
was so pure, that merely to 
err appeared like a change 
in existence — like an en- 
trance into some new and 
unknown world, from which 
she shrank back, in terror to 
herself 

Judge, then, if she easily 
habituated her mind to its 
present degradation. She 
sat, that morning, pale and 
listless; her book lay un- 
opened before her ; her eyes 
were fixed upon the ground, 
heavy with suppressed tears. 
Mrs. St. John entered : no 
one else was in the room. 
She sat by her, and took her 
hand. Her countenance was 
scarcely less colourless than 
Emily’s, but its expression 
was more calm and compos- 
ed. “ It is not too late, 
Emily,” she said, “you have 
done much that you should 
repent — nothing to render 
repentance unavailing. For- 
give me, if I speak to you on 
this subject. It is time — in 
a few days your fate will be 
decided, /have looked on, 
though hitherto I have been 
silent : I have witnessed that 
eye when it dwelt upon you ; 
I have heard that voice when 
i it spoke to your heart. None 


66 


FALKLAND. 


ever resisted their influence 
long; do you imagine that 
you are the first who have 
found their power? Pardon 
me, pardon me, I beseech 
you, my dearest friend, if I 
pain you. I have known you 
from your childhood, and I 
only wish to preserve you 
spotless to your old age.” 

Emily wept, without re- 
plying. Mrs. St. John con- 
tinued to argue and expostu- 
late. What is so wavering 
as passion? When, at last, 
Mrs. St. John ceased, and 
Emily shed upon her bosom 
the hot tears of her anguish 
and repentance, she imagin- 
ed that h?r resolution was 
taken, and that she could al- 
most have vowed an eternal 
separation from her lover ; — 
Falkland came that evening, 
and she loved him more 
madly than before. 

Mrs. St. John was not in 
the saloon when Falkland 
entered. Lady Margaret 
was reading the well-known 

story of Lady T and the 

Duchess of M , in which 

an agreement had been 
made and hept that the one 
who died first should return 
once more to the survivor. 
As Lady Margaret spoke 
laughingly of the anecdote, 
Emily, who was watching 
Falkland’s countenance, was 
struck with the dark and 
sudden shade which fell over 
it. He moved in silence to- 
wards the window where 
Emily was sitting. “Do 


you believe,” she said with 
a faint smile, “ in the possi- 
bility of such an event?” “I 
believe — though I reject — 
nothing !” replied Falkland, 
“but I would give worlds 
for such a proof that 
death does not destroy.” 
“ Surely,” said Emily, “you 
do not deny that evidence of 
our immortality which we 
gather from the Scriptures ? 
— are they not all that a 
voice from the dead could 
be?” Falkland was silent 
for a few moments : he did 
not seem to hear the ques- 
tion : his eyes dwelt upon 
vacancy; and when he at last 
spoke, it was rather in com- 
mune with himself than in 
answer to her. “ I have 
watched,” said he, in a low 
internal tone, “ over the 
tomb ; I have called, in the 
agony of my heart, unto her 
who slept beneath ; I would 
have dissolved my very 
soul into a spell, could it 
have summoned before me 
for one, one moment, the be- 
ing who had once been the 
spirit of my life ! I have been, 
as it were, entranced with 
the intensity of my own ad- 
juration ; I have gazed upon 
the empty air, and worked 
upon my mind to fill it with 
imaginings ; I have called 
aloud unto the winds, and 
tasked my soul to waken 
their silence to reply. All 
was a waste — a stillness — an 
infinity — wdthout a wander- 
er or a voice ! The dead an- 


FALKLAND. 


67 


swered me not, when I in- 
voked them; and in the 
vigils of the still night I look- 
ed from the rank grass and 
the mouldering stones to the 
Eternal Heavens, as man 
looks from decay to immor- 
tality ! Oh ! that awful mag- 
nificence of repose— that liv- 
ing sleep — that breathing, 
yet unrevealing divinity, 
spread over those still worlds! 
To them also I poured my 
thoughts hut in a whisper . — 
I did not dare to breathe 
aloud the unhallowed an- 
guish of my mind to the ma- 
jesty of the unsympathising 
stars ! In the vast order of 
creation — in the midst of the 
stupendous system of uni- 
versal life, — my doubt and 
inquiry were murmured 
forth — a voice crying in the 
wilderness, and returning 
without an echo, unanswered 
unto myself r 

The deep light of the sum- 
mer moon shone over Falk- 
land’s countenance, which 
Emily gazed on, as she lis- 
tened, almost tremblingly, 
to his words. His brow was 
knit and hueless, and the 
large drops gathered slowly 
over it, as if wrung from the 
strained yet impotent tension 
of the thoughts within. 
Emily drew nearer to him — 
she laid her hand upon his 
own. “ Listen to me,” she 
said : “ if a herald from the 
rave could satisfy your 
oubt, I would gladly die 
that I might return to you !” 


“ Beware,” said Falkland, 
with an agitated but solemn 
voice; “the words, now so 
lightly spohen, may he regis- 
tered on high." “ Be it so !” 
replied Emily firmly, and 
she felt what she said. Her 
love penetrated beyond the 
tomb, and she would have 
forfeited all here for their 
union hereafter. 

“ In my earliest youth,” 
said Falkland, more calmly 
than he had yet spoken, “ I 
found in the present and 
the past of this world enough 
to direct my attention to the 
futurity of another : if I did 
not credit all with the en- 
thusiast, I had no sympathies 
with the scorner ; I sat my- 
self down to examine and to 
reflect ; I pored alike over 
the pages of the philosopher 
and the theologian; I was 
neither baffled by the sub- 
tleties, nor deterred by the 
contradictions of either. As 
men first ascertained the 
geography of the earth by 
observing the signs of the 
heavens, I did homage to the 
Unknown God, and sought 
from that worship to inquire 
into the reasonings of man- 
kind. I did not confine my- 
self to books — all things 
breathing or inanimate con- 
stituted my study. From 
death itself I endeavoured to 
extract its secret ; and whole 
nights I have sat in the 
crowded asylums, of the 
dying, watching the last 
spark flutter and decay. 


68 


FALKLAND. 


Men die away as in sleep, 
without effort, or struggle, or 
emotion. I have looked on 
their countenances a moment 
before death, and the sereni- 
ty of. repose was upon them, 
waxing only more deep as it 
approached that slumber 
which is never broken : the 
breath grew gentler and 
gentler, till the lips it came 
from fell from each other, 
and all was hushed ; the light 
had departed from the cloud, 
but the cloud itself, gray, 
cold, altered as it seemed, 
was as before. They died 
and made no sign. They 
had left the labyrinth with- 
out bequeathing us its clew. 
It is in vain that I have sent 
my spirit into the land of 
shadows — it has borne back 
no witness of its inquiry. As 
Newton said of himself, ‘I 
picked up a few shells by 
the sea-shore, but the great 
ocean of truth lay undiscov- 
ered before me.’ ” 

There was a long pause. 
Lady Margaret had sat down 
to chess with the Spaniard. 
No look was upon the 
lovers : their eyes met, and 
with that one glance the 
whole current of their 
th 0 u ghts was changed . T he 
blood, which a moment be- 
fore had left F alkland’s cheek 
so colourless, rushed back to 
it again. The love which 
had so penetrated and per- 
vaded his whole system, and 
which abstruser and colder 
reflection had just calmed, 


thrilled through his frame 
with redoubled power. As 
if by an involuntary and 
mutual impulse, their lips 
met ; he threw his arms 
around her ; he strained her 
to his bosom. “ Dark as my 
thoughts are,” he whisper- 
ed, “ evil as has been my life, 
will you not yet soothe the 
one, and guide the other ? 
My Emily ! my love ! the 
Heaven to the tumultuous 
ocean of my heart — will you 
not be mine — mine only — 
wholly — and forever ?” She 
did not answer — she did not 
turn from hjs embrace. Her 
cheek flushed as his breath 
stole over it, and her bosom 
heaved beneath the arm 
which encircled that empire 
so devoted to him. “ Speak 
one word, one only word,” 
he continued to whisper : 
“ will you not be mine? Are 
you not mine at heart even 
at this moment?” Her head 
sunk upon his bosom. Those 
deep and eloquent eyes look- 
ed up to his through their 
dark lashes. “ I will be 
yours,” she murmured : “ I 
am at your mercy ; I have 
no longer any existence but 
in you. My only fear is, 
that I shall cease to be wor- 
thy of your love !” 

Falkland pressed his lips 
once more to her owm : it 
was his only answer, and the 
last seal to their compact. — 
As they stood before the open 
lattice, the still and unconsci- 
ous moon looked down upon 


FALKLAND. 


that record of guilt. There 
was not a cloud in the 
heavens to dim her purity : 
the very winds of -night had 
hushed themselves to do her 
homage : all was silent but 
their hearts. They stood be- 
neath the calm and holy 
skies, a guilty and devoted 
pair — a fearful contract of 
the sin and turbulence of this 
unquiet earth to the passion- 
less serenity of the eternal 
heaven. The same stars, 
that for thousands of un- 
fathomed years had looked 
upon the changes of this 
nether world, gleamed pale, 
and pure, and steadfast upon 
their burning but transitory 
vow. In a few years what 
of the condemnation or the 
recorders of that vow would 
remain? From other lips, 
on that spot, other oaths 
might be plighted ; new 
pledges of unchangeable 
fidelity exchanged : and, 
year after year, in each suc- 
cession of scene and time, 
the same stars will look from 
the mystery of their untrack- 
ed and impenetrable home, 
to mock, as now, with their 
immutability, the variations 
and shadows of mankind ! 
***** 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq., 
to Lady Emily Mandeville. 

At length then you are to 
be mine — you have con- 


6d 

sented to fly with me. In 
three days we shall leave 
this country, and have no 
home —no world but in each 
other. We will go, my 
Emily, to those golden lands 
where Nature, the only 
companion we will suffer, 
wooes us, like a mother, to 
find our asylum in her 
breast; where the breezes 
are languid beneath the pas- 
sion of the voluptuous skies; 
and where the purple light 
that invests all things wdth 
its glory, is only less tender 
and consecrating than the 
spirit which we bring. Is 
there not, my Emily, in the 
external nature which reigns 
over creation, and that hu- 
man nature centred in our- 
selves, some secret and un- 
definable intelligence and 
attraction ? Are not the im- 
pressions of the former as 
spells over the passions of 
the latter? and in gazing 
upon the loveliness around 
us, do we not gather, as it 
were, and store within our 
hearts, an increase of the 
yearning and desire of love ? 
What can we demand from 
earth but its solitudes — what 
from heaven but its unpol- 
luted air? All that others 
would ask from either, w^e 
can find in ourselves. 
Wealth —honour —happiness 
every object of ambition or 
desire, exist not for us with- 
out the circle of our arms '■ 
But the bower that sur- 
rounds us shall not be un- 


70 


FALKLAND. 


worthy of your beauty or 
our love. Amidst the myrtle 
and the vine, and the valleys 
where the summer sleeps, 
and the rivers that murmur 
the memories and the le- 
gends of old ; amidst the 
hills and the glossy glades, 
and the silver fountains, still 
all as beautiful as if the 
Nymph and Spirit yet held 
and decorated an earthly 
home ; — amidst these we 
will make the couch of our 
bridals, and the moon of 
Italian skies shall keep 
watch on our repose. 

E mily ! — E mily ! — how I 
love to repeat and to linger 
over that beautiful name ! If 
to see, to address, and more 
than all, to touch you, has 
been a rapture, what word 
can I find in the vocabulary 
of happiness to express the 
realization of that hope 
which now burns within me 
— to mingle our youth to- 
gether into one stream, 
wheresoever it flows ; to re- 
spire the same breath ; to be 
almost blent in the same ex- 
istence ; to grow, as it were, 
on one stem, and knit into a 
single life the feelings, the 
wishes, the heing of both ! 

To-night I shall see you 
again : let one day more in- 
tervene, and — I cannot con- 
clude the sentence ! As I 
have written the tumultuous 
happiness of hope has come 
over me to confuse and over- 
whelm every thing else. At 
this moment my pulse riots 


with fever ; the room swims 
before my eyes ; everything 
is indisfinct and jarring — a 
chaos of emotions. O that 
happiness should ever have 
such excess ! 


When Emily received 
and laid this letter to her 
heart, she felt nothing in 
common with the spirit 
which it breathed. With 
that quick transition and in- 
constancy of feeling so com- 
mon in women, and which 
is as frequently their safety 
as their peril, her mind had 
already repented of the 
weakness of the last eve- 
ning, and relapsed into the 
irresolution and bitterness 
of her former remorse. 
Never had there been in the 
human breast a stronger 
contest between conscience 
and passion ; — if, indeed, 
the extreme softness (not- 
withstanding its power) of 
Emily’s attachment could 
be called passion ; it was 
rather a love that had refined 
by the increase of its own 
strength ; it contained noth- 
ing but the primary guilt of 
conceiving it, which that or- 
der of angels, whose nature 
is love, would have sought 
to purify away. To see 
him, to live with him, to 
count the variations of his 
countenance and voice, to 
touch his hand at moments 
when waking, and watch 
over his slumbers when he 


\ 


I 


FALKLAND. 


slept — this was the essence 
of her wishes, and consti- 
tuted the limit to her desires. 
Against the temptations of 
the present was opposed the 
whole history of the past. 
Her mind wandered from 
each to each, wavering and 
wretched, as the impulse of 
the moment impelled it. 
Hers was not, indeed, a 
strong character : her edu- 
cation and habits had weak- 
ened, while they rendered 
more feminine and delicate, 
a nature originally too soft. 
Every recollection of former 
purity called to her with the 
loud voice of duty, as a 
warning from the great guilt 
she was about to incur ; 
and whenever she thought 
of her child — that centre of 
fond and sinless sensations, 
where once she had so 
wholly garnered up her 
heart — her feelings melted 
at- once from the object 
which had so wildly held 
them riveted as by a spell, 
to dissolve and lose them- 
selves in the great and sa- 
cred fountain of a mother’s 
love. 

When Falkland came that 
evening, she was sitting at a 
corner of the saloon, appa- 
rently occupied in reading, 
but her eyes were fixed up- 
on her boy, whom Mrs. St. 
John was endeavouring at 
the opposite end of the room 
to amuse. The child, who 
was fond of Falkland, came 
up to him as he entered: 


71 


F alkland stooped to kiss 
him ; and Mrs. St. John said, 
in a low voice which just 
reached his ear, “ Judas, too, 
kissed before he betrayed.” 
Falkland’s colour changed; 
he felt the sting the words 
M'ere intended to convey. 
On that child, now so inno- 
cently caressing him, he was 
indeed about to inflict a dis^ 
grace and injury the most 
sensible and irremediable in 
his power. But whoever in- 
dulges reflection in passion? 
He banished the remorse 
from his mind as instantane- 
ously as it arose ; and, seat- 
ing himself by Emily, en- 
deavoured to inspire her with 
a portion of the joy and hope 
which animated himself. 
Mrs. St. John watched them 
with a jealous and anxious 
eye: she had already seen 
how useless had been her 
former attempt to arm Emi- 
ly’s conscience effectually 
against her lover ; but she 
resolved at least to renew 
the impression she had then 
made. The danger was im- 
minent, and any remedy 
must be prompt ; and it was 
something to protract, even 
if she could not finally break 
off, an union against which 
were arrayed all the angry 
feelings of jealousy, as well 
as the better affections of 
the friend. Emily’s eye was 
already brightening beneath 
the words that Falkland 
whispered in her ear, when 
Mrs. St John approached 


72 


FALKLAND. 


her. She placed herself on 
a chair beside them, and, un- 
mindful of Falkland’s bent 
and angry brow, attempted 
to create a general and com- 
mon-place conversation. La- 
dy Margaret had invited two 
or three people in the neigh- 
bourhood; and when these 
came in, music and cards 
were resorted to immediate- 
ly, with that English poli- 
tesse, which takes the earliest 
opportunity to show that the 
conversation of our friends 
is the last thing for which 
we have invited them. But 
Mrs. St. John never left the 
lovers; and at last, when 
Falkland, in despair of her 
obstinacy, arose to join the 
card table, she said, “ Pray, 
Mr. Falkland, were you not 
intimate at one time with 
*** ***, who eloped with 
Lady ?” “ I knew him 
but slightly,” said Falkland; 
and then added, with a sneer, 
“ the ordy times I ever met 
him were at your house.” 
Mrs. St. John, without no- 
ticing the sarcasm, continu- 
ed : — “*What an unfortunate 
atfair that proved ! They 
were very much attached to 
one another in early life — the 
only excuse, perhaps, for a 
woman’s breaking her subse- 
quent vows. They eloped. 
The remainder of their histo- 
ry is briefly told : it is that 
of all who forfeit every thing 
for passion, and forget that 
of every thing it is the brief- 
est in duration. He who had 


sacrificed his honour for her 
sacrificed her also as lightly 
for another. She could not 
bear his infidelity ; but how 
could she reproach him ? In 
the very act of yielding to, 
she had become unworthy 
of, his love. She did not 
reproach him — she died of a 
broken heart! I saw her 
just before her death, for I 
was distantly related to her, 
and I could not forsake her 
utterly even in her sin. She 
then spoke to me only of the 
child by her former marriage, 
whom she had left in the 
years when it most needed 
her care : she questioned me 
of its health — its education 
— its very growth : the mi- 
nutest thing was not beneath 
her inquiry. His tidings 
were all that brought back 
to her mind ‘her redolence 
of joy and spring.’ I brought 
that child to her one day ; 
he at least had never forgot- 
ten her. How bitterly both 
wept when they were sepa- 
rated ! and she — poor, poor 
Ellen — an hour after their 
separation was no more!” 
There was a pause for a few 
minutes. Emily was deep- 
ly affected. Mrs. St. John 
had anticipated the effect 
she had produced, and con- 
certed the method to increase 
it. “ It is singular,” she re- 
sumed, “ that the evening 
before her elopement, some 
verses were sent to her ano- 
nymously — I do not think, 
Emily, that you have ever 


FALKLAND. 


73 


seen them. Shall I sing 
them to you now ?” and with- 
out waiting for a reply, she 
placed herself at the piano; 
and with a low but sweet 
voice, gradually aided in ef- 
fect by the extreme feeling 
of her manner, she sang the 
following verses : — 

TO * ♦ * 

1 . 

And wilt thou leave that happy home, 
Where once it was so sweet to live ? 
Ah! think, before thou seek^st to 
roam, 

What safer shelter Guilt can give ! 

2 . 

The Bird may rove, and still regain 
With spotless wings her wonted 
rest; 

But home, once lost, is ne’er again 
Restored to Woman’s erring breast! 

3 . 

If wandering o’er a world of flowers. 
The heart at times would ask repose ; 
But thou wouldst lose the only bowers 
Of rest amid a world of woes. 

4 . 

Recall thy youth’s unsullied vow — 
The past which on thee smiled so 
fair ; 

Then turn from thence to picture now 
The frowns thy future fate must 
wear ! 

5 . 

No hour, no hope, can bring relief 
To her who hides a' blighted name ; 
For hearts unbow’d by stormiest grief 
Will break beneath one breeze of 
shame ! 

6 . 

And when thy child’s deserted years 
Amid life’s early woes are thrown. 
Shall menial bosoms soothe the tears 
That should be shed on thine alone ? 


7 . 

When on thy name his lips shall call, 
(That tender name, the earliest 
taught!) - 

Thou wouldst not Shame and Sin were 
all 

The memories link’d, around its 
thought ! 

8 . 

If Sickness haunt his infant bed. 

Ah! what could then replace thy 
care? 

Could hireling steps as gently tread 
As if a Mother’s soul was there ? 

9 . 

Enough ! ’tis not too late to shun 
The bitter draught thyself wouldst 
fill;* 

The latest link is not undone ; — 

Thy bark is in the haven still 

10 . 

If doom’d to grief through life thou 
art, 

’Tis thine at least unstain’d to die I 
Oh ! better break at once thy heart. 
Than rend it from its holiest tie ! 

It were vain to attempt 
describing Emily’s feelings 
when the song ceased. The 
scene floated before her eyes 
indistinct and dark. The 
violence of the emotions she 
attempted to conceal pressed 
upon her almost to choking. 
She rose, looked at Falkland 
with one look of such an- 
guish and despair that it 
froze his very heart, and left 
the room without uttering a 
word. A moment more — - 
they heard a noise — a fall. 
They rushed out — Emily 
was stretched on the ground, 
apparently lifeless. She had 
h^oken a blood-vessel! 


FALKLAND 


BOOK lY. 


From Mrs. St. John to Erasmus 
Falkland, Esq. 

At last I can give a more 
favourable answer to your 
letters. Emily is now quite 
out of danger. Since the 
day you forced yourself, 
with such a disinterested 
regard for her health and 
reputation, into her room, 
she grew (no thanks to your 
forbearance) gradually bet- 
ter. I trust that she will 
be able to see you in a few 
days. I hope this the more, 
because she now feels and 
decides that it will be for 
the last time. You have, it 
is true, injured her happi- 
ness for life; her virtue, 
thank Heaven, is yet 
spared ; and though you 
have made her wretched, 
you will never, I trust, 
succeed in making her de- 
spised. 

You ask me, with some 
menacing and more com- 
plaint, why I am so bitter 
against you. I will tell 
you. I not only know Em- 
ily, and feel confident, from 
that knowledge, that noth- 
ing can recompense her for 
74 


the reproaches of con 
science, but I know you, 
and am convinced that you 
are the last man to render 
her happy. I set aside, for 
the moment, all rules of re- 
ligion and morality in gene- 
ral, and speak to you (to use 
the cant and abused phrase) 
“ without prejudice” as to 
the particular instance. 
Emily’s nature is soft and 
susceptible, yours fickle and 
wayward in the extreme. 
•The smallest change or ca- 
price in you, which would 
not be noticed by a mind 
less delicate, would wound 
her to the heart. You 
know that the very softness 
of her character arises from 
its want of strength. Con- 
sider, for a moment, if she 
could bear the humiliation 
and disgrace which visit so 
heavily the offences of an 
English wife? She has 
been brought up in the 
strictest notions of morality ; 
and, in a mind not naturally 
strong, nothing can efface 
the first impressions of ed- 
ucation. She is not — in- 
deed she is not — fit for a life 
of sorrow or degradation. 


FALKLAND. 


75 


In another character, anoth- 
er line of conduct might be 
desirable; but with regard 
to her, pause, Falkland, I 
beseech you, before you at- 
tempt again to destroy her 
for ever. I have said all. 
Farewell. 

Your, and above all, Em- 
ily’s friend, 

J. S. 

From Erasmus Falkland, Esq. 

to Lady Emily Mandeville. 

You will see me, Emily, 
now’- that you are recovered 
sufficiently to do so without 
danger. I do not ask this 
as a favour. If my love has 
deserved any thing from 
yours, if past recollections 
give me any claim over you, 
if my nature has not for- 
feited the spell which it 
formerly possessed upon 
your own, I demand it as a 
right. 

The bearer waits for your 
answer. 

E. F. 


From Lady Emily Mandeville 

to Erasmus Falkland, Esq. 

Ssh you, Falkland ! Can 
you doubt it? Can you think 
for a moment that your com- 
mands can ever cease to be- 
come a law to me? Come 
here whenever you please. 
If, during my illness, they 


have prevented it, it was 
without my knowledge. I 
await you ; but I own that 
this interview will be the 
last, if I can claim any thing 
from your mercy. 

Emily Mandeville. 


From Erasmus Falkland, Esq. 

to Lady Emily Mandeville. 

I HAVE seen you, Emily, 
and for the last time ! My 
eyes are dry — my hand does 
not tremble. I live, move, 
breathe, as before — and yet 
I have seen you for the last 
time ! You told me — even 
while you leaned on my bo- 
som, even while your lip 
pressed mine — ^you told me 
(and 1 saw your sincerity) 
to spare you, and to see you 
no more. You told me you 
had no longer any wall, any 
fate of your own ; that you 
w-ould, if I still continued 
to desire it, leave friends, 
home, honour, for me; but 
you did not disguise from 
me that you would, in so 
doing, leave happiness also. 
You did not conceal from 
me that T was not sufficient 
to constitute all your world : 
you threw yourself, as you 
had done once before, upon 
what you called my genero- 
sity : you did not deceive 
yourself then ; you have not 
deceived yourself now. In 
two weeks I shall leave 
England, probably for ever 
I have another country still 


,76 


FALKLAND. 


more dear to me, from its 
afflictions and humiliation. 
Public ties differ but little 
in their nature from pri- 
vate ; and this confession 
of preference of what is de- 
based to what is exalted, 
wil be an answer to Mrs. 
St. John’s assertion, that we 
cannot love in disgrace as 
we can in honour. Enough 
of this. In the choice, my 
poor Emily, that you have 
made, I cannot reproach you. 
You have done wisely, right- 
ly, virtuously. You said that 
this separation must rest ra- 
ther with me than with your- 
self ; that you w'ould be mine 
the moment I demanded it. 
I will not now or ever accept 
this promise. No one, much 
less one whom I love so in- 
tensely, so truly as I do you, 
shall ever receive disgrace 
at my hands, unless she can 
feel that that disgrace would 
be dearer to her than glory 
elsewhere ; that the simple 
fate of being mine w'as not 
so much a recompense as a 
reward ; and that, in spite 
of wmrldly depreciation and 
shame, it would constitute 
and concentrate all her vi- 
sions of happiness and pride. 
I am now going to bid you 
farewell. May you — I say 
this disinterestedly, and from 
my very heart — may you 
soon forget how much you 
have loved and yet love me ! 
p'or this purpose, you can- 
not have a better companion 
than Mrs. St. John. Her 


opinion of me is loudly ex- 
pressed, and probably true ; 
at all events, you will do 
wisely to believe it. You 
will hear me attacked and 
reproached by many. I 
do not deny the charges; 
you know best what I have 
deserved from you. God 
bless you, Emily. Wherev- 
er I go, I shall never cease 
to love you as I do now. 
May you be happy in your 
child and in your conscience. 
Once more God bless you, 
and farewell ! 

Erasmus Falkland. 


Fram Lady Emily Mandeville 

to Erasmus Falkland, Esq. 

O Falkland ! you have 
conquered ! I am yours — 
yours only — wholly and for 
ever. When your letter 
came, my hand trembled so, 
that I could not open it for 
several minutes; and when 
I did, I felt as if the very 
earth had passed from my 
feet. You were going from 
your country ; you were 
about to be lost to me for 
ever. I could restrain my- 
self no longer; all my vir- 
tue, my pride, forsook me at 
once. Yes, yes, you are in- 
deed my world. I will fly 
with you any where — every 
where. Nothing can be 
dreadful, but not seeing 
you ; I would be a servant — 
a slave — a dog, as long as I 
could be with you ; hear one 


FALKLAND. 


77 


tone of your voice, catch 
one glance of your eye. I 
scarcely see the paper be- 
fore me, my thoughts are so 
straggling and confused. 
Write to me one word, 
Falkland ; one word, and I 
will lay it to my heart and 
be happy. 


From Erasmus Falkland to 
Lady Emily Mandeville. 

Hotel, London. 

I HASTEN to you, Emily — 
my own and only love. 
Your letter has restored 
me to life. To-morrow we 
shall meet. 

E. F. 

It was with mingled feel- 
ings, alloyed and embit- 
tered, in spite of the burn- 
ing hope which predomina- 
ted over all, that Falkland 

returned to E . He 

knew that he was near the 
completion of his most ar- 
dent wishes ; that he was 
within the grasp of a prize 
which included all the thou- 
sand objects of ambition, 
into which, among other 
men, the desires are divi- 
ded ; the only dreams he 
had ventured to form for 
years, were about to kindle 
into life. He had every 
reason to be happy ; — such 
is the inconsistency of hu- 
man nature, that he was 
almost wretched. The mor- 
bid melancholy, habitual to 


him, threw its colourings 
over every emotion and idea. 
He knew the character of 
the woman whose affections 
he had seduced ; and he 
trembled to think of the 
doom to which he was about 
to condemn her. With 
this, there came over his 
mind a long train of dark 
and remorseful recollections. 
Emily was not the only one 
whose destruction he had 
prepared. All who had 
loved him, he had repaid 
with ruin; and one — the 
first — the fairest — and the 
most loved, with death. 

That last remembrance, 
more bitterly than all, pos- 
sessed him. It will be re- 
collected that Falkland, in 
the letters which begin this 
work, speaking of the ties 
he had formed after the loss 
of his first love, says, that it 
was the senses, not the affec- 
tions, that were engaged. 
Never, indeed, since her 
death, till he met Emily, 
had his heart been unfaith- 
ful to her memory. Alas ! 
none but those who have 
cherished in their souls an 
image of the dead ; who 
have watched over it for 
long and bitter years in se- 
cresy and gloom i who have 
felt that it was to them as a 
holy and fairy spot which 
no eye but theirs could pro- 
fane; who have filled all 
things with recollections as 
with a spell, and made the 
universe one wide mausole- 


78 


FALKLAND. 


um of the lost; — none but 
those can understand the 
mysteries of that regret 
which is shed over every af- 
ter passion, though it be 
more burning and intense ; 
— that sense of sacrilege 
with which we fill up the 
haunted recesses of the 
spirit with a new and a liv- 
ing idol, and perpetrate the 
last act of infidelity to that 
buried love, which the heav- 
ens that now receive her, 
the earth where we beheld 
her, tell us, with the un- 
numbered voices of Nature, 
to worship with the incense 
of our faith. 

His carriage stopped at 
the lodge. The woman 
who opened the gates gave 
him the following note : — 

“ Mr. Mandeville is re- 
turned ; I almost fear that 
he suspects our attachment. 
Julia says, that if you come 
again to E , she will in- 

form him. I dare not, dear- 
est Falkland, see you here. 
What is to be done ? I am 
very ill and feverish ; my 
brain burns so, that I can 
think, feel, remember noth- 
ing, but the one thought, 
feeling, and remembrance; 
— that through shame, and 
despite of guilt, in life, and 
till death, I am yours. 

“E. M.” 

As Falkland read this 
, note, his extreme and en- 
grossing love for Emily 
doubled with each word : an 


instant before, and the cer- 
tainty of seeing her had suf- 
fered his mind to be divided 
into a thousand objects ; 
now, doubt united them 
once more into one. 

He altered his route to L 

, and despatched from 

thence a short note to Em- 
ily, imploring her to meet 
him that evening by the lake, 
in order to arrange their ulti- 
mate flight. Her answer 
was brief, and blotted wdth 
her tears ; but it was assent. 

During the whole of that 
day, at least from the mo- 
ment she received Falk- 
land’s letter, Emily was 
scarcely sensible of a single 
idea; she sat still and mo- 
tionless, gazing on vacancy, 
and seeing nothing within 
her mind, or in the objects 
which surrounded her, but 
one dreary blank. Sense, 
thought, feeling, even re- 
morse, were congealed and 
frozen ; and the tides of 
emotion were still, hut they 
were ice ! 

As Falkland’s servant 
had waited without to de- 
liver the note to Emily, 
Mrs. St. John had observed 
him ; her alarm and sur- 
prise only served to quicken 
her presence of mind. She 
intercepted Emily’s answer 
under pretence of giving it 
herself to Falkland’s ser- 
vant. She read it, and her 
resolution was formed. Af- 
ter carefully resealing and 
delivering it to the servant, 


FALKLAND. 


79 


she went at once to Mr. 
Mandeville, and revealed 
Lady Emily’s attachment 
to Falkland. In this act of 
treachery, she was solely in- 
stigated by her passions ; 
and w'hen Mandeville, 
roused from his wonted 
apathy to a paroxysm of in- 
dignation, thanked her again 
and again for the generosity 
of friendship which he im- 
agined was all that actuated 
her communication, he 
dreamed not of the fierce 
and ungovernable jealousy 
which envied the very dis- 
grace that her confession 
was intended to award. 
Well said the French en- 
thusiast, “ that the heart, 
the most serene to appear- 
ance, resembles that calm 
and glassy fountain which 
cherishes the monster of the 
Nile in the bosom of its 
waters.” Whatever reward 
Mrs. St. John proposed to 
herself in this action, verily 
she has had the recompense 
that was her due. Those 
consequences of her treach- 
ery, which I hasten to re- 
late, have ceased to others — 
to her they remain. Amidst 
the pleasures of dissipation, 
one reflection has rankled at 
her mind; one dark cloud 
has rested between the sun- 
shine and her soul : like the 
murderer in Shakspeare, 
the revel where she fled for 
forgetfulness has teemed to 
her with the spectres of re- 
membrance. O thou un- 


tameable conscience ! thou 
that never flatterest — thou 
that watchest over the hu- 
man heart never to slumber 
or to sleep — it is thou that 
takest from us the present, 
barrest to us the future, and 
knittest the eternal chain 
that binds us to the rock 
and the vulture of the past ! 

The evening came on still 
and dark ; a breathless and 
heavy oppression seemed 
gathered over the air; the 
full large clouds lay without 
motion in the dull sky, from 
between which, at long and 
scattered intervals, the wan 
stars looked out; a double 
shadow seemed to invest the 
grouped and gloomy trees 
that stood unwaving in the 
melancholy horizon. The 
waters of the lake lay heavy 
and unagitated, as the sleep 
of death ; and the broken 
reflections of the abrupt and 
winding banks rested upon 
their bosoms, like the 
dream-like remembrance of 
a former existence. 

The hour of the appoint- 
ment w-as arrived : F alkland 
stood by the spot, gazing up- 
on the lake before him ; his 
cheek was flushed, his hand 
was parched and dry with the 
consuming fire within him. 
His pulse beat thick and ra- 
pidly ; the demon of evil pas- 
sions was upon his soul. He 
stood so lost in his own re- 
flections, that he did not for 
some moments perceive the 
fond and tearful eye which 


80 


FALKLAND. 


was fixed upon him : on that 
brow and lip, thought seem- 
ed always so beautiful, so di- 
vine, that to disturb its re- 
pose was like a profanation 
of something holy ; and 
though Emily came towards 
him with a light and hurried 
step, she paused involunta- 
rily to gaze upon that noble 
countenance which realized 
her earliest visions of the 
beauty and majesty of love. 
He turned slowly, and per- 
ceived her ; he came to her 
with his own peculiar smile ; 
he drew her to his bosom in 
silence; he pressed his lips 
to her forehead : she leaned 
upon his bosom, and forgot 
all but him. Oh ! if there 
be one feeling which makes 
Love, even guilty Love, a 
god, it is the knowledge that 
in the midst of this breathing 
world he reigns aloof and 
alone ; and that those who 
are occupied with his wor- 
ship know nothing of the 
pettiness, the strife, the bus- 
tle which pollute and agitate 
the ordinary inhabitants of 
earth ! What was now to 
them, as they stood alone in 
the deep stillness of nature, 
every thing that had en- 
grossed them before they had 
met and loved ? Even in 
her, the recollections of guilt 
and grief subsided : she was 
only sensible of one thought 
— the presence of the being 
who stood beside her. 

That ocean to the rivers of her soul. 


They sat down beneath an 
oak : Falkland stooped to 
kiss the cold and pale cheek 
that still rested upon his 
breast. His kisses were like 
lava ; the turbulent and stor- 
my elements of sin and de*- 
sire were aroused even to 
madness within him. He 
clasped her still nearer to 
his bosom : her lips answer- 
ed to his own : they caught 
perhaps something of the spi- 
rit which they received : her 
eyes were half closed ; the 
bosom heaved wildly, that 
was pressed to his beating 
and burning heart. The skies 
grew darker and darker, as 
the night stole over them ; 
one low roll of thunder broke 
upon the curtained and heavy 
air — they did not hear it ; and 
yet it was the knell of peace 
— lost, lost for ever to their 
souls ! 

* * 5}s 


* 5|C jK 5!c 

They separated as they had 
never done before. In Emi- 
ly’s bosom there was a dreary 
void — a vast blank — over 
which there went a low, deep 
voice like a Spirit’s — a sound 
indistinct and strange, that 
spoke a language she knew 
not ; but felt that it told of 
woe — guilt — doom. Her 
senses were stunned : the vi- 
tality of her feelings w'as 
numbed and torpid : the first 
herald of despair is insensi- 
bility. “To-morrow then,” 
said Falkland — and his voice 


FALKLAND. 


81 


for the first time seemed 
strange and harsh to her, “ we 
will fly hence forever : meet 
me at day-break — the car- 
riage shall be in attendance 
— we cannot now unite too 
soon — would that at this very 
moment we were prepared !” 
— “To-morrow!” repeated 
Emily, “ at day-break !” and 
as she clung to him, he felt 
her shudder: “to-morrow — 
aye — to-morrow ! — ” one kiss 
— one embrace — one word 
farewell — and they parted. 

Falkland returned to 
L ; a gloomy forebo- 

ding rested upon his mind : 
that dim and indescribable 
fear, which no earthly or 
human cause can explain — 
that shrinking within self — 
that vague terror of the fu- 
ture — that grappling, as it 
were with some unknown 
shade — that wandering of 
the spirit — whi ther ? — that 
cold, cold creeping dread — 
of what? As he entered the 
house, he met his confiden- 
tial servant. He gave him 
orders respecting the flight 
of the morrow, and then re- 
tired into the chamber where 
he slept. It was an antique 
and large room : the wains- 
cot was of oak; and one 
broad and high window 
looked over the expanse of 
country which stretched be- 
neath. He sat himself by 
the casement in silence — he 
opened it : the dull air came 
over his forehead, not with 
a sense of freshness, but like 


the parching atmosphere of 
the east, charged with a 
weight and fever that sank 
heavy into his soul. He 
turned : — he threw him.self 
upon the bed, and placed his 
hands over his face. His 
thoughts were scattered into 
a thousand indistinct forms, 
but over all, there was one 
rapturous remembrance ; 
and that was, that the mor- 
row was to unite him for 
ever to her whose possession 
had only rendered her more 
dear. Meanwhile, the hours 
rolled on ; and as he lay thus 
silent, and still, the clock of 
the distant church struck 
with a distinct and solemn 
sound upon his ear. It was 
the half-hour after midnight. 
At that moment an icy thrill 
ran, slow and curdling, 
through his veins. His 
heart, as if with a presenti- 
ment of what was to follow, 
beat violently, and then 
stopped; life itself seemed 
ebbing away ; cold drops 
stood upon his forehead ; his 
eyelids trembled, and the 
balls reeled and glazed, like 
those of a dying man; a 
deadly fear gathered over 
him, so that his flesh quiver- 
ed, and every hair in his 
head seemed instinct with a 
separate life : the very mar- 
row of his bones crept, and 
his blood waxed thick, and 
thick as if stagnating into an 
ebbless and frozen substance. 
He started in a wild and unut- 
terable terror. There stood, 


82 


FALKLAND. 


at the far end of the room, a 
dim and thin shape like 
moonlight, without outline 
or form ; still and indistinct, 
and shadowy. He gazed 
on, speechless and motion- 
less ; his faculties and senses 
seemed locked in an unnatu- 
ral trance. By degrees the 
shape became clearer and 
clearer to his fixed and dila- 
ting eye. He saw, as through 
a floating and mist-like veil, 
the features of Emily; but 
how changed ? — sunken, and 
hueless, and set in death. 
The dropping lip, from 
which there seemed to trickle 
a deep red stain like blood ; 
the lead-like and lifeless eye ; 
the calm, awful, mysterious 
repose which broods over the 
aspect of the dead; — all 
grew, as it were, from the 
hazy cloud that encircled 
them for one brief, agoni- 
zing, moment, and then as 
suddenly faded away. The 
spell passed from his senses. 
He sprang from the bed with 
a loud cry. All was quiet ! 
There was not a trace of 
what he had witnessed. 
The feeble light of the skies 
rested upon the spot where 
the apparition had stood : 
upon that spot he stood also. 
He stamped upon the floor 
— it was firm beneath his 
footing. He passed his 
hands over his body — he 
was awake — he was unchan- 
ged : earth, air, heaven, were 
around him as before. What 
had thus gone over his soul 


to awe and overcome it to 
such weakness? To these 
questions his reason could 
return no answer. Bold by 
nature, and sceptical by 
philosophy, his mind gradu- 
ally recovered its original 
tone ; he did not give way 
to conjecture ; he endea- 
voured to discard it: he 
sought by natural causes to 
account for the apparition 
he had seen or imagined ; 
and, as he felt the blood 
again circulating in its ac- 
customed courses, and the 
night air coming chill over 
his feverish frame, he smiled 
with a stern and scornful 
bitterness at the terror which 
had so shaken, and the fancy 
which had so deluded, his 
mind. 

Are there not “more things 
in heaven and earth than are 
dreamed of in our philoso- 
phy ?” A Spirit may hover 
in the air that we breathe : 
the depth of our most secret 
solitudes may be peopled by 
the invisible : our uprisings 
and our down-sittings may 
be marked by a witness from 
the grave. In our walks the 
dead may be behind us ; in 
our banquets they may sit 
at the board ; and the chill 
breath of the night wind 
that stirs the curtains of our 
bed may bear a message our 
senses receive not from lips 
that once have pressed kisses 
on our own ! Why is it that 
at moments there creeps over 
us an awe, a terror, over- 


FALKLAND. 


83 


powering but undefined ? 
Why is it that we shudder 
without a cause, and feel 
the warm life-blood stand 
still in its courses ? Are the 
dead too near ? Do unearth- 
ly wings touch us as they 
flit around ? Has our soul 
any intercourse which the 
body shares not, though it 
feels, with the supernatural 
world — mysterious reveal- 
ings — unimaginable commu- 
nion — a language of dread 
and power, shaking to its 
centre the fleshly barrier 
that divides the spirit from 
its race ? 

How fearful is the very 
life which we hold! We 
have our being beneath a 
cloud, and are a marvel even 
to ourselves. There is not 
a single thought which has 
its affixed limits. Like cir- 
cles in the water, our re- 
searches weaken as they ex- 
tend, and vanish at last into 
the immeasurable and un- 
fathomable space of the vast 
unknown. We are like chil- 
dren in the dark ; we trem- 
ble in a shadowy and terrible 
void, peopled with our fan- 
cies ! Life is our real night, 
and the first gleam of the 
morning, which brings us 
certainty, is death. 

Falkland sat the remain- 
der of that night by the win- 
dow, watching the clouds be- 
come gray as the dawn rose, 
and its earliest br^eeze awoke. 
He heard the trampling of 
the horses beneath : he drew 


his cloak round him, and de- 
scended. It was on a turn- 
ing of the road beyond the 
lodge that he directed the 
carriage to wait, and he then 
proceeded to the place ap- 
pointed. Eniily was not yet 
there. He walked to and fro 
with an agitated and hurried 
step. The impression of the 
night had in a great measure 
been effaced from his mind, 
and he gave himself up with- 
out reserve to the warm and 
sanguine hopes which he had 
so much reason to conceive. 
He thought too, at moments, 
of those bright climates be- 
neath which he designed 
their asylum, where the very 
air is music, and the light is 
like the colourings of love ; 
and he associated the sighs 
of a mutual rapture with the 
fragrance of myrtles, and the 
breath of a Tuscan heaven. 
Time glided on. The hour 
was long past, yet Emily 
came not ! The sun rose, and 
Falkland turnd in dark and 
angry discontent from its 
beams. With every moment 
his impatience increased, and 
at last he could restrain him- 
self no longer. He proceeded 
toward the house. He stood 
for some time at a distance; 
but as all seemed still hushed 
in repose, he drew nearer 
and nearer till he reached 
the door : to his astonishment 
it was open. He saw forms 
passing rapidly through the 
hall. He heard a confusion 
and indistinct murmur. At 


84 


FALKLAND. 


length he caught a glimpse 
of Mrs. St. John. He could 
command himself no more. 
He sprang forwards ; entered 
the door ; the hall ; and 
caught her by a part of her 
dress. He could not speak, 
but his countenance said all 
his lips refused Mrs. St. 
John burst into tears when 
she saw him. “ Good God !” 
she said, “ why are you here ? 
Is it possible you have yet 

learned V’ Her voice 

failed her. Falkland had by 
this time recovered himself 
He turned to tlie servants 
who gathered around him. 
“ Speak,” he said calmly. 
“ What has occurred ?” “ My 
lady — tpy lady !” burst at 
once frbm several tongues. 
“ What of her ?” said Falk- 
land, with a blanched cheek, 
but unchanging voice. There 
was a pause. At that instant 
a man, whom Falkland re- 
cognized as the physician of 
the neighbourhood, passed 
the opposite end of the hall. 
A light, a scorching and in- 
tolerable light, broke upon 
him. “ She is dying — she 
is dead perhaps,” he said, in 
a low sepulchral tone, turn- 
ing his eye around till it had 
rested upon every one pre- 
sent. Not one answered. He 
paused a moment, as if stun- 
ned by a sudden shock, and 
then sprang up the stairs. 
He passed the boudoir, and 
entered the room where Emi- 
ly slept. The shutters were 
only partially closed : a faint 


light broke through and rest- 
ed on the bed; beside it bent 
two women. Them he neith- 
er heeded nor saw. He drew 
aside the curtain. He beheld 
the same as he had seen it 
in his vision of the night be- 
fore — the changed and life- 
less countenance of Emily 
Mandeville? That face, still 
so tenderly beautiful, was 
partially turned towards him. 
Some dark stains upon the 
lip and neck told how she 
had died — the blood-vessel 
she had broken before had 
burst again. The bland and 
soft eyes, which for him nev- 
er had but one expression, 
were closed ; and the long 
and dishevelled tresses half 
hid, while they contrasted, 
that bosom, which had but 
the night before first learned 
to thrill beneath his own. 
Happier in her fate than she 
deserved, she passed from 
this bitter life ere the pun- 
ishment of her guilt had be- 
gun. She was not doomed 
to wither beneath the blight 
of shame, nor the coldness 
of estranged affection. From 
him whom she had so wor- 
shipped, she was not con- 
demned to bear wrong nor 
change. She died while his 
passion was yet in its spring 
— before a blossom, a leaf, 
had faded ; and she sank to 
repose while his kiss was yet 
warm upon her lip, and her 
last breath almost mingled 
with his. For the woman 
who has erred, life has no 


FALKLAND. 


85 


exchange for such a death. 
Falkland stood mute and mo- 
tionless: not one word of 
grief or horror escaped his 
lips. A t length he bent down. 
He took the hand which lay- 
outside the bed ; he pressed 
it ; it replied not to the pres- 
sure, but fell cold and heavy 
from his own. He put his 
cheek to her lips; not the 
faintest breath came from 
them ; and then for the first 
time a change passed over 
his countenance : he pressed 
upon those lips one long and 
last kiss, and, without word, 
or sign, or tear, he turned 
from the chamber. Two 
hours afterwards he was 
found senseless upon the 
ground : it was upon the 
spot where he had met Emi- 
ly the night before. 

For weeks he knew no- 
thing of this earth — he was 
encompassed with the spec- 
tres of a terrible dream. All 
was confusion, darkness, hor- 
ror — a series and a change 
of torture ! At one time 
he was hurried through the 
heavens in the womb of a 
fiery star, girt above and be- 
low and around with unex- 
tinguishable but unconsum- 
ing flames. Wherever he 
trod, as he wandered through 
his vast and blazing prison, 
the molten fire was his foot- 
ing, and the breath of fire 
was his air. Flowers, and 
trees, and hills were in that 
world as in ours, but wrought 
from one lurid and intole- 
6 


rable light; and, scattered 
around, rose gigantic palaces 
and domes of the living flame, 
like the mansions of the city 
of Hell. With every mo- 
ment there passed to and 
fro shadowy forms, on whose 
countenances was engraven 
unutterable anguish ; but 
not a shriek, not a groan 
rung through the red air; 
for the doomed, who fed and 
inhabited the flames, were 
forbidden the consolation of 
voice. Above there sat, fixed 
and black, a solid and impe- 
netrable cloud — Night fro- 
zen into substance ; and from 
the midst there hung a ban- 
ner of a pale and sickly 
flame, on which was writ- 
ten “ For Ever.” A river 
rushed rapidly beside him. 
He stooped to slake the ago- 
ny of his thirst — the waves 
were waves of flre ; and, as 
he started from the burning 
draught, he longed to shriek 
aloud, and could not. Then 
he cast his despairing eyes 
above for mercy, and saw 
on the livid and motionless 
banner “ For Ever.” 

A change came o'er the spirit of 
his dream : 

He was suddenly borne upon 
the winds and storms to the 
oceans of an eternal winter. 
He fell stunned and un- 
struggling upon the ebbless 
and sluggish waves. Slowly 
and heavily they rose over 
him as he sank : then came 
the lengthened and suflbcat- 


86 


FALKLAND. 


ing torture of that drowning 
death — the impotent and 
convulsive contest with the 
closing waters — the gurgle, 
the choking, the bursting 
of the pent breath, — the flut- 
ter of the heart, its agony, 
and its stillness. He reco- 
vered. He was a thousand 
fathoms beneath the sea, 
chained to a rock round 
which the heavy waters rose 
as a wall. He felt his own 
flesh rot and decay, perish- 
ing from his limbs piece by 
piece ; and he saw the coral 
Ijanks, which it requires a 
thousand ages to form, rise 
slowly from their slimy bed, 
and spread atom by atom, 
till they became a shelter for 
the leviathan : their growth 
was his only record of eter- 
nity ; and ever and ever, 
around and above him, came 
vast and misshapen things — 
the wonders of the secret 
deeps ; and the sea serpent, 
the huge chimaera of the 
north, made its resting-place 
by his side, glaring upon 
him with a livid and death- 
like eye, wan, yet burning 
as an expiring sun. But over 
all, in every change, in every 
moment of that immortality, 
there was present one pale 
and motionless countenance, 
never turning from his own. 
The fiends of hell, the mon- 
sters of the hidden ocean, 
had no horror so awful as 
the human face of the dead 
whom he had loved. 

The word of his sen- 


tence was gone forth. Alike 
through that delirium and 
its more fearful awakening, 
through the past, through 
the future, through the vi- 
gils of the joyless day, and 
the broken dreams of the 
night, there was a charm 
upon his soul — ^a hell within 
himself; and the curse of 
his sentence was — never to 
forget ! 

When Lady Emily re- 
turned home on that guilty 
and eventful night, she stole 
at once to her room : she 
dismissed her servant, and 
threw herself upon the 
ground in that deep despair 
which on this earth can 
never again know hope. 
She lay there without the 
power to weep, or the cour- 
age to pray — how long, she 
knew not. Like the period 
before creation, her mind 
w'as a chaos of jarring ele- 
ments, and knew' neither 
the method of reflection, nor 
the division of time 

As she rose, she heard 
a slight knock at the door, 
and her husband entered. 
Her heart misgave her ; and 
when she saw him close the 
door carefully before he ap- 
proached her, she felt as if 
she could have sunk into 
the earth, alike from her in- 
ternal shame, and her fear 
of its detection. 

Mr. Mandeville w'as a 
weak, common-place, cha- 
racter ; indifferent in ordi- 
nary matters, but, like most 


FALKLAND. 


87 


imbecile minds, violent and 
furious when aroused. “ Is 
this, Madam, addressed to 
you ?” he cried in a voice of 
thunder, as he placed a let- 
ter before her ; (it was one 
of Falkland’s) “ and this, 
and this. Madam ?” said he, 
in a still louder tone, as he 
flung them out one after 
another from her own escru- 
toire, which he had broken 
open. 

Emily sank back, and 
gasped for breath. Mande- 
ville rose, and, laughing 
fiercely, seized her by the 
arm. He grasped it with 
all his force. She uttered a 
faint scream of terror; he 
did not heed it; he flung 
her from him, and, as she 
fell upon the ground, the 
blood gushed in torrents 
from her lips. In the sud- 
den change of feeling which 
alarm created, he raised her 
in his arms. She was a 
corpse ! At that instant the 
clock struck upon his ear 
with a startling and solemn 
sound ; it was the half-hour 
after midnight ! 

The grave is now closed, 
upon that soft and erring 
heart, with its guiltiest se- 
cret unrevealed. She went 
to that last home with a 
blest and unblighted name ; 
for her guilt was unknown, 
and her virtues are yet re- 
corded in the memories of 
the Poor. 

* * * * 3 |: 

ip. i/L ifi id 


They laid her in the state- 
ly vaults of her ancient line, 
and her bier was honoured 
with tears from hearts not 
less stricken, because their 
sorrow, if violent, was brief 
For the dead there are many 
mourners, but only one mo- 
nument — the bosom which 
loved them best. The spot 
where the hearse rested, the 
green turf beneath, the sur- 
rounding trees, the gray 
tower of the village church, 
and the proud halls rising 
beyond, — all had witnessed 
the childhood, the youth, 
the bridal-day, of the being 
whose last rites and solem- 
nities they were to witness 
now. The very bell which 
rang for her birth had rung 
also for the marriage peal ; 
it now tolled for her death. 
But a little while, and she 
had gone forth from that 
home of her young and un- 
clouded years, amidst the 
acclamations and blessings 
of all, a bride, with the in- 
signia of bridal pomp — in 
the first bloom of her girlish 
beauty — in the first inno- 
cence of her unawakened 
heart, weeping, not for the 
future she was entering, but 
for the past she was about 
to leave, and smiling through 
her tears, as if innocence had 
no business with grief. On 
the same spot, where he had 
then waved his farewell, 
stood the father now. On 
the grass which they had 
then covered, flocked the 


88 


FALKLAND. 


peasants whose wants her ^ 
childhood had relieved; by 
the same priest w’ho had 
blessed her bridals, bent the 
bridegroom who had plight- 
ed its vow. There was not 
a tree, not a blade of grass 
withered. The day itself 
was bright and glorious ; 
such was it when it smiled 
upoh her nuptials. And 
she — she — but four little 
years, and all youth’s inno- 
cence darkened, and earth’s 
beauty come to dust ! Alas ! 
not for her, but the mourner 


whom she left ! In death 
even love is forgotten; but 
in life there is no bitterness 
so utter as to feel every thing 
is unchanged except the One 
Being who was the soul of 
all — to know the world is the 
same, but that its sunshine 
is departed. 

* ♦ * ♦ ♦ 


% % Ha id ifi 

id Hf. Ha Ha Ha 


Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha 

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha 

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha 


FALKLAND 


BOOK V. 


The noon was still and 
sultry. Along the narrow 
street of the small village of 
lodar poured the wearied, 
but yet unconquered band, 
which embodied in that dis- 
trict of Spain the last hope 
and energy of freedom. 
The countenances of the 
soldiers were haggard and 
dejected ; they displayed 
even less of the vanity, than 
their accoutrements exhibit- 
ed, of the pomp and circum- 
stance of war. Yet their 
garments were such as even 
the peasants had disdained : 
covered with blood and dust, 
and tattered into a thousand 
rags, they betokened nothing 
of chivalry but its endurance 
of hardship ; even the rent 
and sullied banners drooped 
sullenly along their staves, 
as if the winds themselves 
had become the minions of 
Fortune, and disdained to 
swell the insignia of those 
whom she had deserted. 
The glorious music of battle 
was still. An air of dis- 
pirited and defeated enter- 
prise hung over the whole 
array. “ Thank Heaven,” 


said the chief, who closed 
the last file as it marched on 
to its scanty refreshment 
and brief repose; “thank 
Heaven, we are at least out 
of the reach of pursuit ; and 
the mountains, those last re- 
treats of liberty, are before 
us !” “ True, Don Rafael,” 

replied the younge.st of two 
officers who rode by the side 
of the commander ; “ and if 
we can cut our passage to 
Mina, we may yet plant the 
standard of the Con.stitution 
in Madrid.” “ Aye,” added 
the elder officer, “and sing 
Riego’s hymn in the place 
of the Escurial !” “ Our 

sons may !” said the chief, 
who w'as indeed Riego him- 
self, “ but for us — all hope is 
over ! Were we united, we 
could scarcely make head 
against the armies of France ; 
and divided as we are, the 
wonder is that we have es- 
caped so long. Hemmed in 
by invasion, our great enemy 
has been ourselves. Such 
has been the hostility faction 
has created between Span- 
iard and Spaniard, that we 
seem to have none left to 
89 


90 


FALKLAND. 


waste upon Frenchmen. 
We cannot establish freedom 
if men are willing to be slaves. 
We have no hope, Don Al- 
phonso — no hope — but that 
of death !” As Riego con- 
cluded this desponding an- 
swer, so contrary to his 
general enthusiasm, the 
younger officer rode on 
among the soldiers, cheering 
them with words of con- 
gratulation and comfort; or- 
dering their several divi- 
sions ; cautioning them to be 
prepared at a moment’s no- 
tice ; and impressing on their 
remembrance those small but 
essential points of discipline, 
which a Spanish troop might 
well be supposed to disre- 
gard. When Riego and his 
companion entered the small 
and miserable hovel which 
constituted the head-quarters 
of the place, this man still 
remained without ; and it 
was not till he had slackened 
the girths of his Andalusian 
horse, and placed before it the 
undainty provender which 
the ecurie afforded, that he 
thought of rebinding more 
firmly the bandages wound 
around a deep and painful 
sabre cut in the left arm, 
which for several hours had 
been wholly neglected. The 
officer, whom Riego had ad- 
dressed by the name of Al- 
phonso, came out of the hut 
just as his comrade was vain- 
ly endeavoring, with his teeth 
and one hand to replace the 


ligature. As he assisted him, 
he said, “ You know not, my 
dear Falkland, how bitterly 
I reproach myself for having 
ever persuaded you to a cause 
where contest seems to have 
no hope, and danger no glo- 
ry.” Falkland smiled bitterly. 
“Do not deceive yourself, my 
dear uncle,” said he; “your 
persuasions would have been 
unavailing but for the sug- 
gestions of my own wishes. 
I am not one of those enthu- 
siasts who entered on your 
cause with high hopes and 
chivalrous designs : I asked 
but forgetfulness and excite- 
ment — I have found them ! 
I would not exchange a 
single pain I have endured 
for what would have consti- 
tuted the pleasures of other 
men ; — but enough of this. 
What time, think you, have 
we for repose ?” “ Till the 
evening,” answered Alphon- 
se : “ our route will then most 
probably be directed to the 
Sierra Morena. The Gene- 
ral is extremely weak and ex- 
hausted, and needs a 'longer 
rest than we shall gain. It 
is singular that with such 
weak health he should en- 
dure so great an excess of 
hardship and fatigue.” Dur- 
ing this conversation they 
entered the hut. Riego was 
already asleep. As they seat- 
ed themselves to the wretch- 
ed provision of the place, a 
distant and indistinct noise 
was heard. It came first on. 


FALKLAND. 


91 


their ears like the hirth of the 
mountain wind — low, and 
hoarse,* and deep ; gradually 
it grew loud and louder, and 
mingled with other sounds 
which they defined too well 
— the hum, the murmur, the 
trampling of steeds, the ring- 
ing echoes of the rapid march 
of armed men ! They heard 
and knew the foe was upon 
them ! — a moment more 
and the drum beat to arms. 
“ By St. Pelagio,” cried 
Riego, who had sprung 
from his light sleep at the 
first sound of the approach- 
ing danger, unwilling to be- 
lieve his fears, “ it capnot be : 
the French are far behind 
and then, as the drum beat, 
his voice suddenly changed, 
— “ the enemy ! the enemy ! 
D’Aguilar, to horse !” and 
with those words he rushed 
out of the hut. The sol- 
diers, who had scarcely be- 
gun to disperse, were soon 
re-collected. In the mean- 
while the French command- 
er, D’Argout, taking advan- 
tage of the surprise he had 
occasioned, pou’red on his 
troops, which consisted sole- 
ly of cavalry, undaunted and 
undelayed by the fire of the 
posts. On, on they drove 
ike a swift cloud charged 
vith thunder, and gathering 
wrath as it hurried by, be- 
foie it burst in tempest on 
the beholders. They did not 
pause till they reached the 
fartler extremity of the vil- 
lage there the Spanish in- 


fantry were already formed 
into two squares. “Halt!” 
cried the French command- 
er : the troops suddenly stop- 
ped, confronting the nearer 
square. There was one brief 
pause — the moment before 
the storm. “ Charge I” said 
D’Argout, and the word 
rang throughout the line up 
to the clear and placid sky. 
Up flashed the -steel like 
lightning ; on went the troop 
like the da.sh of a thousand 
waves when the sun is upon 
them ; and before the breath 
of the riders was thrice 
drawn, came the crash — the 
shock — the slaughter of bat- 
tle. The Spaniards made 
but a faint resistance to the 
impetuosity of the onset : 
they broke on every side be- 
neath the force of the charge, 
like the weak barriers of a 
rapid and swollen stream; 
and the French troops, after 
a brief but bloody victory, 
( joined by a second squadron 
from the rear,) advanced im- 
mediately upon the Spanish 
cavalry. Falkland was by 
the side of Riego. As the 
troop advanced, it* would 
have been curious to notice 
the contrast of expression in 
the face of each ; the Spa- 
niard’s features lighted up 
with the daring enthusiasm 
of his nature, every trace 
of their usual languor and 
exhaustion vanished beneath 
the unconquerable soul that 
blazed out the brighter for 
the debility of the frame; 


92 


FALKLAND. 


the brow knit; the eye 
flashing ; the lip quivering ; 
— and close beside, the calm, 
stern, passionless repose that 
brooded over the severe yet 
noble beauty of Falkland’s 
countenance. To him dan- 
ger brought scorn, not en- 
thusiasm : he rather despis- 
ed than defied it. “ The 
dastards ! they waver,” said 
Kiego, irran accent of de- 
spair, as his troop faltered 
beneath the charge of the 
French : and so saying, he 
spurred his steed on to the 
foremost line. The contest 
was longer, but not less de- 
cisive than the one just 
concluded. The Spaniards, 
thrown into confusion by the 
first shock, never recovered 
themselves. Falkland, who, 
in his anxiety to rally and 
inspirit the soldiers, had ad- 
vanced with two other offi- 
cers beyond the ranks, was 
soon surrounded by a de- 
tachment of dragoons : the 
wound in his left arm scarce- 
ly suffered him to guide his 
horse : he was in the most 
imminent danger. At that 
moment D’Aguilar, at the 
head of his own immediate 
followers, cut his way into 
the circle, and covered Falk- 
land’s retreat; another de- 
tachment of the enemy came 
up, and they were a second 
time surrounded. In the 
meanwhile, the main body 
of the Spanish cavalry were 
flying in all directions, and 


Riego’s deep voice was heard 
at intervals, through the co- 
lumns of smoke and dust, 
calling and exhorting them 
in vain. D’Aguilar and his 
scanty troop, after a despe- 
rate skirmish, broke again 
through the enemy’s line 
drawn up against their re- 
treat. The rank closed after 
them, like waters when the 
object that pierced them has 
sunk : Falkland and his two 
companions were again en- 
vironed : he saw his com- 
rades cut to the earth before 
him. He pulled up his 
horse for one moment, clove 
down with one desperate 
blow the dragoon with whom 
he was engaged, and then 
setting his spurs to the very 
rowels into his horse, dash- 
ed at once through the cir- 
cle of his foes. His remark- 
able presence of mind, and 
the strength and sagacity 
of his horse, befriended him. 
Three sabres flashed before 
him, and glanced harmless 
from his raised sword, like 
lightning on the water. The 
circle was passed ! As he 
galloped towards Riego, his 
horse started from a dead 
body that lay across the 
path. He reined up for one 
instant, for the counte- 
nance, which looked up- 
wards, struck him as fam- 
liar. What was his horro*, 
when, in that livid and dis- 
torted face, he recognbed 
his uncle ! The thin grizded 


FALKLAND. 


93 


hairs were besprent with 
gore and brains, and the 
blood yet oozed from the 
spot where the ball had 
passed through his temple. 
Falkland had but a brief in- 
terval for grief, the pursuers 
were close behind : he heard 
the snort of the foremost 
horse before he again put 
spurs into his own. Riego 
was holding a hasty consul- 
tation with his principal of- 
ficers. As F alkland rode 
breathless up to them, they 
had decided on the conduct 
expedient to adopt. They 
led the remaining square of 
infantry towards the chain 
of mountains against which 
the village as it were lean- 
ed ; and there the men dis- 
persed in all directions. 
“ For us,” said Riego to the 
followers on horseback who 
gathered around him, “ for 
us the mountains still pro- 
mise a shelter. We must ride, 
gentlemen, for our lives — 
Spain will want them yet.” 

Wearied and exhausted 
as they were, that small and 
devoted troop fled on into 
the recesses of the mountains 
for the remainder of that day 
— twenty men out of the 
two thousand who had halt- 
ed at lodar. As the evening 
stole over them, they entered 
into a narrow defile : the tall 
hills rose on every side 
covered with the glory of 
the setting sun, as if Nature 
rejoiced to grant her bul- 


warks as a protection to 
liberty. A small clear 
stream ran through the val- 
ley, sparkling with the last 
smile of the departing day ; 
and ever and anon, from the 
scattered shrubs and the fra- 
grant herbage, came the 
vesper music of the birds, 
and the hum of the wild 
bee. 

Parched with thirst, and 
drooping with fatigue, the 
wanderers sprang forward 
with one simultaneous cry 
of joy to the glassy and re- 
freshing wave which burst 
so unexpectedly upon them ; 
and it was resolved that they 
should remain for some 
hours in a spot where all 
things invited them to the 
repose they so imperiously 
required. They flung 
themselves at once upon the 
grass; and such was their 
exhaustion, that rest was 
almost synonymous with 
sleep. Falkland alone could 
not immediately forget him- 
self in repose : the face of 
his uncle, ghastly and di.s- 
figured, glared upon his eyes 
whenever he closed them. 
Just, however, as he was 
sinking into an unquiet and 
fitful doze, he heard steps 
approaching: he started up, 
and perceived two men, one 
a peasant, the other in the 
dress of a hermit. They 
w'ere the first human beings 
the w'anderers had met ; and 
when Falkland gave the 


94 


FALKLAND. 


alarm to Riego, who slept 
beside him, it was immedi- 
ately proposed to detain 
them as guides to the town 
of Carolina, where Riego 
had hopes of finding effec- 
tual assistance, or the means 
of ultimate escape. The 
hermit and his companion 
refused, with much vehe- 
mence, the office imposed 
upon them ; but Riego or- 
dered • them to be forcibly 
detained. He had after- 
wards reason bitterly to re- 
gret this compulsion. 

Midnight came on in all 
the gorgeous beauty of a 
southern heaven, and be- 
neath its stars they renewed 
their march. 

As Falkland rode by the 
side of Riego, the latter said 
to him in a low voice, 
“ There is yet escape for you 
and my followers ; none for 
me : they have set a price 
on my head, and the moment 
I leave these mountains, I 
enter upon my own destruc- 
tion.” “ No, Rafael !” re- 
plied Falkland; “you can 
yet fly to England, that asy- 
lum of the free, though ally 
of the despotic; the abettor 
of tyranny, but the shelter 
of its victims !” Riego an- 
swered, with the same faint 
and dejected tone, “ I care 
not now what becomes of 
me ! I have lived solely for 
freedom : I have made her 
my mistress, my hope, my 
dream : I have no existence 


but in her. With the last 
effort of my country let me 
perish also ! I have lived to 
view Liberty not only de- 
feated, but derided : I have 
seen its efforts not aided, but 
mocked. In my own coun- 
try, those only, who wore it, 
have been respected who 
used it as a covering to am- 
bition. In other nations, 
the free stood aloof when the 
charter of their own rights 
was violated in the invasion 
of ours. I cannot forget 
that the senate of that Eng- 
land, where you promise me 
a home, rang with insulting 
plaudits when her statesman 
breathed his ridicule on our 
weakness, not his sympathy 
for our cause; and I — I — 
fanatic — dreamer — enthusi- 
ast as I may be called, whose 
whole life has been one un- 
remitting struggle for the 
opinion I have adopted, am 
at least not so blinded by my 
infatuation but I can see the 
mockery it incurs. If I die 
on the scaffold to-morrow, I 
shall have nothing of martyr- 
dom but its doom; not the 
triumph — the incense — the 
immortality of popular ap- 
plause : I should have no 
hope to support me at such 
a moment, gleaned from the 
glories of the future — no- 
thing but one stern and pro- 
phetic conviction of the 
vanity of that tyranny by 
which my sentence would 
be pronounced.” Riego 


FALKLAND. 


95 


paused for a moment before 
he resumed, and his pale 
and death-like countenance 
received an awful and un- 
natural light from the inten- 
sity of the feeling that swell- 
ed and burned within him. 
His figure was drawn up to 
its full height, and his voice 
rang through the lonely hills 
with a deep and hollow 
sound, that had in it a tone 
of prophecy, as he resumed : 
“ It is in vain that they oppose 
OPINION ; any thing else 
they may subdue. They 
may conquer wund, water, 
nature itself; but to the pro- 
gress of that secret, subtle, 
pervading spirit, their im- 
agination can devise, their 
strength can accomplish, no 
bar : its votaries they may 
seize, they may destroy ; 
itself ihey cannot touch. If 
they check it in one place, 
it invades them in another. 
They cannot build a wall 
across the whole earth ; and, 
even if they could, it would 
pass over its summit ! 
Chains cannot bind it, for it 
is immaterial — dungeons en- 
close it, for it is universal. 
Over the faggot and the 
scaffold — over the bleeding 
bodies of its defenders which 
they pile against its path, it 
sweeps on with a noiseless 
but unceasing march. Do 
they levy armies against it, \t 
presents to them no palpable 
object to oppose. Its camp 
is the universe; its asylum is 
the bosoms of their own sol- 


diers. Let them depopulate, 
destroy as they please, to 
each extremity of the earth ; 
but as long as they have a 
single supporter themselves 
— as long as they leave a 
single individual into whom 
that spirit can enter — so long 
they will have the same 
labours to encounter, and the 
same enemy to subdue.” 

As Riego’s voice ceased, 
Falkland gazed upon him 
with a mingled pity and ad- 
miration. Sour and ascetic 
as was the mind of that hope- 
less and disappointed man, 
he felt somewhat of a kin- 
dred glow at the pervading 
and holy enthusiasm of the 
patriot to whom he had lis- 
tened; and though it was 
the character of his own 
philosophy to question the 
purity of human motives, 
and to smile at the more 
vivid emotions he had ceased 
to feel, he bowed his soul in 
homage to those principles 
whose sanctity he acknow- 
ledged, and to that devotion 
of zeal and fervour with 
which their defender cher- 
ished and enforced them. 
Falkland had joined the 
constitutionalists with re- 
spect, but not ardour, for 
their cause. He demanded 
excitation ; he cared little 
where he found it. He 
stood in this world a being 
who mixed in all its changes, 
performed all its offices, took, 
as if by the force of superior 
mechanical power, a leading 


96 


FALKLAND. 


share in its events; but 
whose thoughts and soul 
were as offsprings of anoth- 
er planet, imprisoned in a 
human form, and longing for 
their home ! 

As they rode on, Riego 
continued to converse with 
that imprudent unreserve 
which the openness and 
warmth of his nature made 
natural to him : not one word 
escaped the hermit and the 
peasant (whose name was 
Lopez Lara) as they rode on 
two mules behind Falkland 
and Riego. “ Remember,” 
whispered the hermit to his 
comrade, “ the reward !” 
“I do,” muttered the peas- 
ant. 

Throughout the whole of 
that long and dreary night, 
the wanderers rode on inces- 
santly, and found them- 
selves at day-break near a 
farm-house ; this was Lara’s 
own home. They made the 
peasant Lara knock; his 
own brother opened the 
door. Fearful as they were 
of the detection to which so 
numerous a party might 
conduce, only Riego, anoth- 
er officer, (Don Luis de 
Sylva,) and Falkland en- 
tered the house. The lat- 
ter, whom nothing ever 
seemed to render weary or 
forgetful, fixed his cold stern 
eye upon the two brothers, 
and, seeing some signs pass 
between them, locked the 
door, and so prevented their 
escape. For a few hours 


they reposed in the stables 
with their horses, their 
drawn swords by their sides. 
On waking, Riego found it 
absolutely necessary that his 
horse should be shod. Lo- 
pez started up and offered to 
lead it to Arguillas for that 
purpose. “ No,” said Riego, 
who, though naturally im- 
prudent, partook in this in- 
stance of Falkland’s habitual 
caution ; “ your brother shall 
go and bring hither the far- 
rier.” Accordingly the bro- 
ther went : he soon returned. 
“ The farrier,” he said, “ was 
already on the road.” Riego 
and his companions, who 
were absolutely fainting 
with hunger, sat down to 
breakfast ; but Falkland, 
who had finished first, and 
who had eyed the man since 
his return with the most 
scrutinizing attention, with- 
drew towards the window, 
looking o\it from time to 
time with a telescope which 
they had carried about them, 
and urging them impatiently 
to finish. “ Why ?” said 
Riego, “famished men are 
good for nothing, either to 
fight or fly — and we must 
wait for the farrier.” 
“True,” said Falkland, 
“but, ” he stopped ab- 

ruptly. Sylva had his eyes 
on his face at that moment. 
Falkland’s colour suddenly 
changed : he turned round 
with a loud cry. “ Up ! up ! 
Riego ! Sylva ! We are un- 
done — the soldiers are upon 


FALKLAND. 


97 


us!” “Arm!” cried Riego, 
starting up. At that mo- 
ment Lopez and his brother 
seized their own carbines, 
and levelled them at the 
betrayed constitutionalists. 
“The first who moves,” 
cried the former, “ is a dead 
man !” “ Fools !” said Falk- 
land, with a calm bitterness, 
advancing deliberately to- 
wards them. He moved 
only three steps — Lopez 
fired. Falkland staggered 
a few paces, recovered him- 
self, sprang towards Lara, 
clove him at one blow from 
the skull to the jaw, and fell, 
with his victim, lifeless upon 
the floor. “ Enough !” said 
Riego to the remaining pea- 
sant : “We are your priso- 
ners ; bind us !” In two 
minutes more the soldiers 
entered, and they were con- 
ducted to Carolina. Fortu- 
nately Falkland was known, 
when at Paris, to a French 
officer of high rank then at 
Carolina. He was removed 
to the Frenchman’s quar- 
ters. Medical aid was in- 
stantly procured. The first 
examination of his wound 
was decisive; recovery w'as 
hopeless ! 

***♦!)! 

* * * * * 

* 4: 4: 4: * 

* * * * * 

* * * * * 

* * * * * 


Night came on again, with 
her pomp of light and shade 
— the night that for Falkland 
had no morrow. One solitary 
lamp burned in the chamber 
where he lay alone with God 
and his own heart. He had 
desired his couch to be placed 
by the window, and request- 
ed his attendants to with- 
draw. The gentle and balmy 
air stole over him, as free 
and bland as if it were to 
breathe for him for ever ; and 
the silver moonlight came 
gleaming trhough the lattice, 
and played upon his wan 
brow, like the tenderness of 
a bride that sought to kiss 
him to repose. “ In a few 
hours,” thought he, as he 
lay gazing on the high stars 
which seemed such silent 
witnesses of an eternal and 
unfathomed mystery, “in a 
few hours either this fever- 
ish and wayw'ard spirit will 
be at rest forever, or it will 
have commenced a new ca- 
reer in an untried and unima- 
ginable existence ! In a few 
hours I may be amongst the 
verj'’ heavens that I survey 
— a part of their owm glory 
— a new' link in a new order 
of being — breathing amidst 
the elements of a more gor- 
geous world — arrayed my- 
self in the attributes of a 
purer and a diviner nature 
— a w'anderer among the 
planets — an associate of an- 
gels — the beholder of the ar- 
cana of the great God-^re- 


98 


FALKLAND. 


deemed, regenerate, immor- 
tal, or dust ! 

There is no (Edipus to 
solve the enigma of life. We 
are — whence came we? We 
are not — whither do we go? 
All things in our existence 
have their object ; existence 
has none. We live, move, 
beget our species, perish, and 
for: what f We ask the past 
Its moral; we question the 
gone years of the reason of 
our being, and from the 
clouds of a thousand ages 
there goes forth no answer. 
Is it merely to pant beneath 
this w’eary load ; to sicken 
of the sun ; to grow old ; to 
drop like leaves into the 
grave : and to bequeath to 
our heirs the w'orn garments 
of toil and labour that we 
leave behind ? Is it to sail 
for ever on the same sea, 
ploughing the ocean of time 
with new furrows, and feed- 
ing its billows with new 

wrecks, or ” and his 

thoughts paused, blinded and 
bewildered. 

No man, in whom the mind 
has not been broken by the 
decay of the body, has ap- 
proached death in full con- 
sciousness, as Falkland did 
that moment, and not thought 
intensely on the change he 
was about to undergo; and 
yet what new discoveries up- 
on that subject has any one 
bequeathed us ? There the 
wildest imaginations are dri- 
ven from originality intotrite- 


ness ; there all minds, the 
frivolous and the strong, the 
busy and the idle, are com- 
pelled into the same path and 
limit of reflection. Upon 
that unknown and voiceless 
gulf of inquiry broods an eter- 
nal and impenetrable gloom : 
— no wind breathes over it 
— no wave agitates its still- 
ness : over the dead and 
solemn calm there is no 
change propitious to adven- 
ture — there goes forth no ves- 
sel of research, which is not 
driven, bafiled, and broken, 
again upon the shore. 

The moon waxed high in 
her career. Midnight was 
gathering slowly over the 
earth : the beautiful, the mys- 
tic hour, blent with a thou- 
sand memories, hallowed by 
a thousand dreams, made 
tender to remembrance by 
the vows of our youth breath- 
ed beneath its star, and sol- 
emn by the olden legends 
which are linked to its ma- 
jesty and peace — the hour in 
which men should die; the 
isthmus between two worlds ; 
the climax of the past day ; 
the verge of that which is to 
come; wrapping us in sleep 
after a weary travail, and 
promising us a morrow which 
since the first birth of Crea- 
tion has never failed. As the 
minutes glided on, Falkland 
felt himself grow gradually 
weaker and weaker. The 
pain of his w'ound had ceased, 
but a deadly sickness gather- 


FALKLAND. 


99 


ed over his heart : the room 
reeled before his eyes, and 
the damp chill mounted from 
his feet up — up to the breast 
in which the life-blood wax- 
ed dull and thick. As the 
hand of the clock pointed to 
the half hour after midnight, 
the attendants who waited in 
the adjoining room heard a 
faint cry. They rushed has- 
tily into Falkland’s chamber; 
they found him stretched 
half out of the bed. His 
hand Avas raised towards the 
opposite wall; it dropped 
gradually as they approached 
him; and his brow, which 
was at first stern and bent, 
softened, shade by shade, in- 


to its usual serenity. But 
the dim film gathered fast 
over his eye, and the last 
coldness upon his limbs. He 
strove to raise himself as if 
to speak ; the effort failed, 
and he fall motionless on his 
face. I'hey stood by the bed 
for some moments in silence ; 
at length they raised him 
gently. Placed against his 
heart was an open locket of 
dark hair, which one hand 
still pressed convulsively. 
They looked upon his counte- 
nance — a single glance was 
sufficient — it was hushed — 
proud — passionless — the seal 
of death was upon it ! 


THE ENDi 


riHE IRON MASK ! 

I OR, THE FEATS St ADVENTURES OF 

I RAOUL DE BRACELONNE. 


Bein? the Gnal Conclusien of “The Three Gnardsmen,” “Twenty fears 4fter»” 

and “ Bragelonne» the Son of Athos.” 

BY ALBYANDRE BUMAS, 

AUTHOR OJ THE “THREE GUARDSMEN, »» “COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO,” “ISABEL OP BATARIA,»» “GENS- 
{ VIEVE, OR THE REIGN OF TERROR, »» DIANA OP MERIDOR,” Ac. & 0 . 

! 

1 Complete In two lar^e Octavo volumes of 4^0 pa^esy printed on tlae finest vrlilte paper* 
WltH Beantlfnlly Illustrated Covers^ Portraits and Rngraving^s* 

PRICK FOR THE ENTIRE WORK, ONE DOI*L.AR* 

T. B. PETERSON, No. 98 CHESTNUT STREET, Philadelphia, having purchased the advance sheets, in 
French, of the above great work, at a large expense, and having had it translated into English by the best 
Frencli translator in the world, Thomas Williams, Esq., of the city of New York, and late of Paris, he being an 
intimate fwend of Alexandre Dumas, takes great pleasure in announcing to the people of this country tliat the 
above master-piece of Alexandre Dumas has just bipen published by him, in two large octavo volumes, of four 
hundred and twenty pages, with beautifully illustrated covers and portraits, printed from fino engravings and 
new stereotype plates, on the best of white paper. Price Fifty cents a volume. 

All persons wilf agree im pronouncing this work to bo the chief-d’oeuvre and greatest work ever penned by 
Alexandre Dumas. It is a work possessing more interest than any other he has ever written. That mystery 
which has puzzled the world during nearly two centuries, “ THE PRISONER IN THE IRON MASK,’’ is 
’ completely solved, and in a manner so powerful, interesting and ingenious, that this episode of itself renders 
the work invaluable to all persons. 

We will not praise the work ourselves, but we annex a few notices of the Press in relation to it, to show what 
they think of it: — 

AVom the PkUcuidphia North American and United State* OazetU. — “The Iron Mask; or Feats and Adventures of Racal Da 
Bragelonne, by Auexanprb Dumas. This is one of the best novels which have ever come from the prolific pen of Dumas, aiwi 
is now completed by the publication of the second volume, just issued by T. B. Peterson, 98 Chestnut street. Those who have 
taken an interest in the ‘Three Guardsmen,’ and their successors, will, of course, be anxious to see how tbo vaiious charao- 
terrt are disposed of, while the episode of the ‘ Prisoner in the Iron Ma*k,’ will, no doubt attract many fresh readers.** 

Hear what Col.WaUacej the editor of the Philadelphia Daily Sun, says o/i?:— “No work of fiction ever written possesses mr^ro 
Inh^rest than this. It was feared that the French Revolution, and the prominent political part taken by Dumas, would 
ind ICC him to abandon the field of fiction; hut it is with unfeigned satisfaction that we have an evidence to the contrary in 
the ‘Iron Mask.* The four inseparable friends, D’Artagnan, A thos, Aramis and Porthos — the types of perseverance, dig- 
nity, intellect and physical stren^h — are still the prominent characters, and the scene is laid during the truly romantic 
reign of Louis XIV. The mysterious State Prisoner, the Man in the Iron Mask, gives the name to this work. The book 
will be sought after with avidity by everybody, and will prove to be the best and most popular hook of this century. We 
advice all persons to get it and read it, or otherwise they will^lose a rich treat.** 

Prom the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, — “The Iron Mask, complete in two volumes, has just been published by T. B. 
Peterwn, No. 98 Chestnut street. This story finishes that powerful series of historical novels, by Alexandre Dumas, which, 
under the names of the ‘Three Guardsmen,* ‘Twenty years After,* ‘ Bragelonne,* and ‘The Iron Mask,* conduct the 
reader through the reigns of Louis XIII., and XIV., of Prance, in one of the most brilliant panoramas known in fiction. 
Every one who has read the preceding novels will desire to see how the characters are finally disi> 08 ed of, while the story of 
the celebrated ‘ Prisoner in the Iron Mask,* will attract hundreds of new readers.” 


Prom McMdkin^s Model American Saturday Courier. — “ The Iron Mask. — This last and most absorbing and best of Alex- 
andre Dumas’ celebrated works, has been issued by T. B. Peterson, No. 98 Chestnut 8t7*eet, Mr. P., having purchased the 
advance sheets of the great French novelist. It is one of the most powerful works of the day, and is destined to have a very 
great sale.” 

Prom the New York DaHy Trtbv/ne. — “Dumas* Great Work — ^The Iron Mask. — We would call the attention of our readers 
to this celebrated Alexandre Dumas. It is now published complete in two volumes, and will no doubt prove to be 

onu of tlie most popular works ever printed in this country. It is the conclusion of that interesting series of novels oom- 
i mencing with the Three Guardsmen.” 

Prom the Daily Standard, Elizahethtmon, N. J. — “The Iron Mask. — Here is a work destined to have an immense sale, for 
every person who has read the novels to which this is a s^uel, and there are tens and tens of thousands, will all desire to 
peruse this. Of all the novelists of France, Dumas, as an historical writer, is the best ; and this work is confessedly his maa- 
ter-pieoe; therefore no one can err in purchasing ‘The Iron Mask.* Mr. P., has issued the work in excellent style.” 

From the Philaddphia Saturday OazetU. — “ The Iron Mask. Dumas has been called, and not without justice, ^le Sir 
Walter Sonlt of France. He certainly excels all other noveli.st8 of that country in the walk of historical fiction. In addi- 
tion he has the merit, rare for a feuilleton writer, ©f not pandering to immorality, either covertly or openly. His bestnovela 
are the series of which this forms the conclusion; ^.nd of the whole four we regard ‘The Iron Mask* as the master-piece- 
Wboever wishes for a vivid picture of the age of Louis XIV., whoever desires an absorbing fiction, will peruse these volu 2 «e. 
Those who have read the former novels of the series, and are interested in the fate of the inimitable D’Artagman, of Brage- 
lonnc, or of the other characters of the story, will of course purchase this continuation, while those who have never met the 
preceding novels will be gratified with this alone. Was there nothing else ot interest'in these volumes, the episode of the 
Iron Bfask would be of itself worth the price of the hook.” 

Hear what 7%oi. TfVUams, Esq.yOf New Torky the Translator of the work, says ofilz — “ Since the French Rerolntjon, Dnmafl 
has resumed his favorite work, and which all agree in pronouncing his chief-d’oeuvre, and he has fbr some months past 
been occupied in oompleting this sequel to the ‘ Three Guardsmen,* ‘Twenty Years After,* and ‘Bragelonne.* The scenes 
whicli were but merely sketched in the hasty conclusion, he has elaborated with his usual skill : it is a work possesring 
more interest than any other he has ever written. Our old friends, D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis and Porthos, are still its 
leading characters, while many new ones are introduced, throwing much light upon the history of those times, and the in- 
trigxies of the Frencli Court during the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. That mystery which had puziled the world 
during nearly two ceutun-% ‘The Prisoner in the Iron Mask,’ Is completely solved, and in a manner so ^werful, interast- 
ing and ingenious, that thi^ episode of itself renders the work invaluable.” 


From the Philadelphia Da-ly Pennsylvania Inquirer. — “The Iron Mask. — It is a powerful work by Dumas, whaoh has 
just been published in a cheap and handsome form by Mr. T. B. Peterson. It is full of incident and interest, andvrSl 
have a very large sale, and prove to be one of the^most popular works ever printed. It is truly historical, and is Dumaef 
jrast4«rpieoe ” 


V. Prom the Philadelphia PiMic Ledger. — “The Iron Mask, or Peats and Adventures of Raoul De Bragelonae, by Al«9um(b«x 
W Dum.os. — This is one of the most interesting novels which have ever come from the pen of Alexandre Dumas.** ^ 

.0 Copies of the above work will be sent to any one on receipt of remittances, addressed to tiie Publisher. C 

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